A Mother's day gift

Mother's Day was upon me and I was in labor that day.  I remember it so well.  As I lay in the hospital I heard a nurse coming onto her shift remark,  "Is someone having a baby today?  It's a great day to have a baby!"  Well you must have heard that because shortly after that you came into the world.   I still have the rose made out of pink netting that the ladies auxillary brought to me.  Memories. 
Brian Joseph Daulton, May 10th, 1981 - September 24, 1985.  Born on Mother day, died on my birthday. You were the sweetest boy these eyes have seen.  You flew through life with every flag unfurled.  Your life....  I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

You died when you were only four,
I always thought there would be more.
More time to laugh and run and play,
More love to give another day.

You were so young and sweet and fair,
Your shining blue eyes and your blonde hair,     
Taken away without a cause,
Taken away so now I pause,
To look back and remember when
The days were full of my Brian.                                                


Love you forever,
            Mom


            



This is one of the last pictures we have of Brian.  I wanted to share it with you.  Although his death affected me profoundly it also taught me lessons that I've never forgotten.  The broken hearted are close to the Lord.  He ministered to me (when I would let Him) and He drew me closer to Him as time went by.  He has restored my soul and given me compassion and opened my eyes to see life differently.  To treasure life more.  To reach out to those who are hurting too, for we all have pain.

It is one of the reasons we adopt I'm sure.  We want to be a part of God's redemptive work.  He welcomed us into His family through adoption.  We are just doing what God does for all of us.  Adoption.   It's a gift in so many ways.

Here is my mother's day picture today.  My children gathered around me to bless me on this special day.  God is good!

                     

Happy Mother's Day!       Love, Jane

It's May!

We've been having so many computer problems I have not been able to post anything.  Our laptop crashed and we found out the motherboard is fried.  It's only a year old!  I have just now been able to download some pictures from my camera onto this new laptop so here goes....

These were taken at the Unbaby Shower that Dana Steele threw for Marina Joy.  Cara Suttles hosted it at her house and it was so much fun!  Marina got a lot of new clothes and two precious lamps for her room.  Thanks ladies!

These are pictures of Marina Joy and Emily celebrating their birthdays at our favorite Mexican restaurant!

It was a Happy Easter for all!  We were blessed to have Liz and Bryce join us this year.  We missed Mike as he was in Japan.  Our Bill was working of course!   Restaurants are hard to get away from on holidays.  All this kids hunt for baskets after church and have a blast!  It was Marina's first easter and she looked beautiful!

What a sweet picture of marina!  I think one of the kids took it!

Another Mexican shot!  This one is of sweet Anya.  I couldn't resist!

I found this Ukrainian outfit that we bought for Anya.  She wore it when she was a little one.  Isn't Marina sweet in it?

These pictures were taken at Special Games that is held every year for the students in Chesapeake who have an IEP.  It was an absolutely beautiful day and all the kids were winners!

One last picture of Marina on her way to school.  She's gained 12 pounds in four months and grown almost two inches!  What a joy to watch her blossom!

 

This is beautiful Heather.  She is soon to be twelve yet wears a size 2T.  We've known her for two years and she has our hearts.   We've been working in orphanages for ten years and have never thought about adopting again until we met these two little ones.  Our dossier is almost ready and we are hoping to get this adoption done in two trips this summer.  Please help us bring this little one home.  Help us give her a future and a hope!  Please pray for us and tell your friends about us.  We thank you all for your love and prayers.

 

Marina Joy Turns eleven!

I haven't written in here in a long time.  Partly because of computer problems but mostly because of time.  There are never enough hours in the day.  Marina has been with us for two and a half months and everyone is moving over to make room for one more.  She rooms with our Lani who is our lowest functioning child.  Lani has Down Syndrome and is autistic so she is more limited in what she can do.  Marina has turned out to be a real blessing for Lani.  Lani gets such a charge out of this little girl!  They sometimes bathe together and Marina loves to wash Lani's hair.  It's amazing that Lani will put up with this from MJ but she does so willingly.

Counting to 13

Well we look forward to the year 2013 and what it holds.  We now have 13 in our family.  Miss Marina Joy is lucky number 13!   We got her home on Friday the 21st in time for Christmas!  We were broke because of the trips and extra expenses incurred but wouldn't you know it, God came through again!  He is faithful, doesn't know how to be anything but faithful.
Our friend, Jeff Guill, took it upon himself to raise money for us this Christmas and we were so blessed!  We had 13 online donors who gave a total of  $967.05!  Thirteen for the number of children we've been priviledged to call our own.  Isn't God good?  Thank you Jeff for being a "burden bearer".  Isn't that what we're called to do in the body of Christ?  Bear one another's burdens.  What grace we have experienced.
Our grown son Bill came home with his girlfriend Erin and we opened our presents on Christmas eve day, something we've never done before but they had to leave so....  We enjoyed our gift exchange with them.  They are great shoppers, Erin even wrapped Anya and Emily's presents with Justin Bieber wrapping paper!  What fun!

 What a fun time we had with Bill and Erin and our oldest son Mike.  Ben got the sword he asks for every single Christmas and we were so glad he was healthy and able to celebrate with us.  Marina took her time with every single present.  She had to throw each piece of wrapping paper away as she unwrapped a present.  It was a LONG day!  We were sorry to see Bill and Erin go.
The next visitor to arrive was of course Santa, aka, Liz  and Bryce.  They sneak in every Christmas Eve to eat Santa's cookies, which they couldn't find this year (someone forgot) and put MORE presents under the tree.  I ran into Liz in the hall at 3:30 as Marina was up for some reason.  Must have been the excitement.  We just had to go see the tree.  We never put the presents under the tree till the kids are asleep. 

Don't you just love a Christmas tree?  We sure do.  We went to the lot we normally go to and all the kids had a blast looking at all the trees.  We picked out a nice one and the folks there gave it to us for free!  What a great gift!   Here's a picture of our other gift this Christmas in her first nightgown.

So many firsts for her.  She's signing "I love you" which her dad taught her the first day.  We do sign but she knows so many english words already.  One of the things we love is to hear her sing which she does a lot!  Her orphanage had an accordion player who was introduced to us as "the most important man there" by the director.  He would always get the kids together and teach them songs which they always sang with gusto.  I've been to many of  their "concerts" and I get a kick out of hearing marina sing those songs to herself.
Back to Christmas!  Finally the day arrived and the kids were thrilled with all the presents.  They are allowed to get into their stockings but nothing else before breakfast.  A cruel tradition I know.  We always have a big breakfast and then go into the living room to open presents.  We skyped Bill and Erin so they could be in on the festivities with us.  It was a great morning for all.  Mike gave the kids a 47" TV which made the day!  Emily got a CD player and she spends lots of time in her room now listening to her Justin Bieber music.  She and her sister Anya got lots of nail polish and even a dryer for their nails!  What teenagers!
We got another family picture with Liz in it this time.  It is always a challenge to get so many people to look at the camera at the same time.  Bryce did a wonderful job getting everyone's attention.

So from our house to yours we wish you a very Happy 2013!  May it be filled with the blessings of the Lord! 

It ain't over yet!!!

I am back at home and so happy to be after 26 days in country!!  It was so hard to stay and complete the adoption with our Ben so sick at home.  Most of the time my stomach was in knots wondering about Ben and the latest health scare.  Our daughter Liz came to the rescue again for us and was the best advocate for Ben that he could've had.  Thank God, Ben is home now and getting healthier everyday.  He is on oxygen still and I have to monitor his weight, blood sugar, pulse rate, O2 sats daily and am pleased to be here now to do it.  Ben is on a chopped food diet and his choices are limited, all his beverages have to be thickened.  He's lost 34 pounds in a month!  A needed change but a tough way to lose weight. He is wearing his CPAP machine at night now and is awake all day!  Great changes for Ben!  We appreciate all the prayers that were offered for our family in all this time.   They were heard by our loving God.
We found out last tuesday that Marina's passport would not be ready for our deadline of Dec 14th so we went to the embassy and I signed the papers I needed to for Dave to be able to fly back and pick up Marina by himself.  We were able to rest for a day and drive to Winchester to see our amazing daughter Liz graduate with a Masters in Occupational Therapy from Shenandoah U.  She has worked long and hard for this and we wouldn't have missed it for the world.  Liz was the class representative and gave a great speech.  She also won an award for Outstanding Graduate!  We are so proud of her!!

 

Dave had to leave early the next day for New York to catch a flight back to Ukraine to pick up our girl.  I am exhausted so I am the lucky one to get to stay home with these kiddos.  He is there now getting ready to pick up our girl and do the embassy and the exit medical.  He tells me it's 12 below!  He'll be home with our new addition by Friday in time for Christmas! Marina has never had a Christmas before with a family.  She's never owned a toy or a piece of clothing or been given good food to eat.  So many firsts for her and for us.  We are looking forward to watching her blossom in her new family.  The extra money we had to spend on another flight is tough at this time of year.  You can donate to our paypal if you feel led to do so.  We appreciate all the prayers and support we have received throughout this journey.  Your prayers were answered, our thanksgivng is your thanksgiving.  God bless you and Merry Christmas!  He is the reason for the season!! 

 

 

 

She's so ready to leave!  Thanks for helping us give her a real family!!!

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Hangin On!

We have been in this country for 16 days now, 13 days in this area. I know that doesn't seem long to some but it is for us. Our facilitators are doing their very best to speed things through but speed is not something this country seems to understand. We were entertained yesterday with a puppet show! The kids loved it! It was very good though I didn't understand a word of it!  They are getting ready for Christmas here in the orphanage. They have three trees in the main gathering area and someone just brought in a real tree which they just put in a bucket of sand. It only reminds me of how much I need to do at home to get ready for Christmas. The last time we Skyped the kids at home they were all signing "tree". Last year Jack was moving the living room furniture on November 28th to make room for the Christmas tree! We always get a live tree so we don't normally put it up until two weeks before Christmas. We look forward to doing it this year as soon as we get home. Well, after Liz's graduation that is! We have spent a lot of time here at the orphanage with the children and it will be hard to say goodbye even though our hearts are longing for home. This is a special needs orphanage for kids 5 to ? Some of the kids are the size of two year olds. I was asking about one little one I thought was maybe five, she's 14. Oh it hurts my heart! While we are heartened by the many who come over for these special children it is sad that the older ones are being passed by. One boy looks and acts so much like our Ben it's amazing! This will be the third adoption from the place and we pray there will be many, many more!