10 Days till Esty's 10th Birthday!!

In 10 days, Esty will celebrate her 10th birthday.
Or, what she knows as "celebrate."
Every single one of her birthdays she has been without a family.
EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.
And now this year she turns "double digits."
Around here, we make a big deal about that. I wonder, will they do that for her?
My heart absolutely aches for my daughter half a world away.
As you may know, Esty has been waiting for a family for over 9 years. She was abandoned at 9 months of age...probably when she should have begun to crawl or walk and it was discovered that she could not.
Studies have proven that in the 9-11 month range, babies begin to develop their fears of being left. Separation anxiety. Have you dropped off a clingy, tear-filled 9 month old baby at the church nursery? It's a developmental stage. They are attached to you. They don't want you to vanish from their sight. They fear you leaving.
And that's what happened to our Esty. For real.
No one came back for her.
Alone.
Without anyone to tuck her in at night. To calm her fears, to celebrate her successes. To encourage her that she will be chosen for adoption...one day.

This is the first picture in her file. She is 5 years old. This means that no one prepared her file for adoption for years...they didn't think anyone would choose her with her specific needs. She waited in the orphanage for 4 years and 3 months before they deemed her worthy of being adopted.
{Oh. My heart.}
Well my friends, November 8th is going to be her FINAL birthday in an orphanage!!! It may be her double digit day, but it's going to be an exciting one...because we are going to get her OUT OF THERE!!!!
I want to share this video of our sweet girl here, and you don't have to watch all of it, but I want you to see how special she is. How focused, careful, intelligent and gentle she is. Notice how well she works with her hands. And if you do choose to finish the video, you will see her sweet smile over her success in creating her origami boat! (they turn the camera right side up at the :22 mark!)

Now, I have an idea. (A momma who wants to bring her daughter home gets ideas in the middle of the night!) :)
There are TEN DAYS until Esty's TENTH birthday. 
As you can see, she cannot walk, but loves to work with her hands. We have asked the nannies and they have told us her favorite animal is a bunny rabbit.
I bought my girl a bunny puzzle. It looks like this:

I think she is going to LOVE working on putting it together after she comes home!
How cool would it be if people who HELPED HER COME HOME had their names on the backs of those 300 pieces that she will work with her sweet hands? Do you think this might be meaningful to her?
I do.
So here's my challenge: for the next TEN DAYS, I'd like to find people who will celebrate Esty's 10th birthday by donating $10 to help bring her home from that orphanage.
Each $10 gift will be celebrated by your name on the back of a piece of her bunny puzzle. If you choose to give more, you can just have your name on several pieces!
We are hoping to close the gap on our remaining $19,000 we need to go and get her!  We are currently waiting on our Letter of Acceptance (LOA) that will begin our time clock of 3 months till we travel to bring her home! (We currently estimate going in February!)
If you choose to celebrate with us, you can use the donate button below or click here to give to our Adopt Together account. (Adopt Together donations will receive a tax deductible receipt.) Either place is wonderful!
Let's let Esty know how much we want her home and how much we want her to have a HAPPY 10th BIRTHDAY!!!!

DQ is TWO!!!

Our little DQ is now TWO YEARS OLD!! What?!?!?!?! How can that be? Just a wee tiny bit ago she looked like this: (this is back when we suspected she was "he!")

Then out came a GIRL!!!! What????? Totally shocking to us all...she acted like a busy boy in there...but she was indeed not--just preparing for a vibrant life of a daredevil!

What? You don't think this looks like a daredevil? hahahaha!!

What a precious bundle of baby she was!! Oh! My heart aches for baby days!

Definitely tons of potential here... hee hee!

Now you recognize her!  At 4 months of happiness!

6 months old!

17+ pounds of LOVE!!

In Grandma Thomas' baby dress! 9 months old

All American Baby!

Happy 1st birthday, DQ!!!

And now, for a more REAL LOOK at life with DQ...
one of many LIPSTICK episodes:

"So sad that I did that!!"

Repentence is so genuine. She'll NEVER do it again!
(If you don't know, she ate ALL of my mail-order lipsticks that are now discontinued.
 Got to Grandma Shaw's last weekend too!)

On to HAPPIER times...
Nothing is greater than when it's your BIRTHDAY!

Now the daredevil in her can be seen! :)

Cherishing the card!

Opening the biggest present! What could it be?

This is the child whose first trip to the beach had her barrel running down to the ocean. Had she ever been to it? No. Did she know what it was? No. But adventure called. She tripped, got a face full of sand and her first ever wave crashed over her head. Did this stop her? No. She got up and began to run AGAIN into the ocean. Wow!! Don't you just want to live life JUST LIKE THAT!?!?!? 

I do.

Thanks, DQ, for teaching me how to have a zest for life, a love for adventure and the non stop curiousity that brings the flavor to life! Happy 2nd birthday!! We treasure you and cannot imagine life without you!!!

And if you are still here...why don't you take in a sweet moment before bedtime with DQ?

The March of Birthdays...

  

I am so blessed. I have TWO delightful daughters both born in March. 

Often we combine their parties into one...this year, it was a wee bit different.

For Anneli's birthday, we took the whole family to CHICAGO!!!

We rode the train in from Wheaton...an experience that Oliver is STILL talking about! What fun! And we sat up on the top level! Yippie!

Choo choo!

                          












First stop...the AMERICAN GIRL store! :) (A long time dream of hers to go there!) She was delighted to find out that her grandparents had called ahead and prepared gift cards to the store! She looked carefully and decided to buy Kanani, the new Hawaiian girl of the year!

Next stop, Gino's East Pizzeria!
Time for these kids to have some genuine Chicago style deep dish!! We were so lucky, we avoided all lines and just walked in! Still had the HOUR to wait while they cooked our pizza...



So everyone found things to do!

Reading her new book about her Kanani doll

Oliver and Daddy and DQ had gone to the Lego store while the older girls and I were playing at the AG store. This gave Olly something to play with while we waited for PIZZA!

We're so cute!

           And then...

THE PIZZA CAME! 

Anneli got to a booth before another diner did!

And one of the best parts about
 Gino's East is being able to
 leave your mark!!

Jensi found a place on a support beam to leave her name.

I don't think he is left-handed...but maybe only for graffiti!

And finally I did this for ALL of us:

We visited a few more places...but the longer the day wore on, the fussier sweet little Darrah Kate got.

At the Bean in Millennium Park...in the wind and snow. Love Anneli's stoic pose. And Oliver's new Disney friend.

The next day, we went to my alma mater, Wheaton College!

And then discovered the Billy Graham Museum was OPEN! We HAD to take the kids there...

Standing at Billy Graham's preaching podium!

Jensi and my college friend's daughter pose with Billy

The heart of Billy's message etched in a big stone wall and lit up!

All the kids together!

And this is too cute to not show you:

Darrah Kate and Lillian...both kinda sorta 2 years old :)

Cake time!

A gymnast cake for my girl who spends most of her life upside down!

Her candle has bites out of it. Yes, Darrah Kate struck again!





And Jensi's ipod cake:

ELEVEN candles...oh my!

Surprise and excitement over Matthew West concert tickets for NEXT WEEK! :)

ipod cake with her favorite artist and song!


Birthdays in March...a fun time for everyone! Happy birthday to two of my favorite people on the planet!