Not flesh of my flesh....

Not flesh of my flesh,
Nor bone of my bone,
But still miraculously my own.
Never forget for a single minute,

You didn't grow under my heart,

But in it.

 Author: Fleur Conkling Heyliger
Sweet S and V--we are all thrilled that we have been officially matched and told we can become your family!  Thanking God today for our two youngest daughters and two sisters!  We are coming precious girls! 
Thanking Him for how you have grown in our hearts the last six months!  Although you aren't flesh of our flesh, God formed you in our hearts long ago.  
To God be the glory, great things He has done!
This is the day the LORD has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!  Psalm 118:24

Some good reads.....

I thought I would share some of the adoption books we have, some of these being ours and some from our ONE adoption/foster care ministry.  Love learning a lot of new things that will help us prepare for the girls!

One book that I forgot to grab for the picture that is excellent is Orphan Justice, an amazing book!

These are some of the books that I like with regards to sensory issues.  We are so grateful to be learning so much recently about the body working as a whole and doing things to improve abilities through exercise and movement.  Truly amazing!  And lots of nuggets in these books.

Learning much about patience lately and how hard it can be to wait.   We will be so thankful to be matched and have our facilitator meet our girls.   We sent out a care package for them this week.  Another family will deliver to our facilitator  (thank you E family), and she will give our photo books, cards and stuffed animals to S and V.  I would love to show all the pictures of the books but can't yet-- we had the girls' pictures on them and phrases translated into their language.  Hoping Google translate got everything right! Bill pulled the books together--he did a great job!   Here are some pages that didn't have S and V's names or language.

We recently visited a bakery/deli that sells food from the girls' country and museum for the girls' country.  We all enjoyed the food and picked up some things to freeze so S and V will have some familiar food when they get here.  We also found out that we have been mispronouncing the girls names--oops!  Thankfully we'll have a couple of months to get things right.  It is nice to have some things relatively close by that will help S and V feel connected to their birth country.   We are also hoping to pick up music and other items in country that will be reminders of their years in their birth country.   We were able to find two great books for them, one a Richard Scarry book that is in English and their native language, and the other a book all about their country written for kids with pictures and snippets about life there---history, what people eat, do, etc.   One thing I am realizing is that we need to start working on some basic words and phrases.

We have been advised by our adoption agency to not share on our blog pictures of S and V or the country they are in until we have gone to court.  We don't want to do anything to compromise our adoption but will be thrilled to "show" people them after court.  They are precious girls, S having longer dark hair and very blue eyes, and V having lighter colored, short hair with the same beautiful blue eyes.  We think that S may have a dimple on the left cheek--just like Ellie which thrills Ellie.

One family is in country right now and met their daughter yesterday--so amazing to see their pictures!  Very touching!  Another family that works with our agency leaves on Monday to meet their son.  We are learning much from both of them.  Praying for safe travel and no snags along the way for both families.

Got me thinking......

"The child is God's gift to the family. Each child is created in the special image and likeness of God for greater things; to love and to be loved."      
Mother Teresa 

Loving our five children in our home and the two we are waiting to bring home---thank You God for these precious gifts!  May we love them as You do, help them to know and love You,  and teach them to love others.

Preparing.....

Or maybe I should have titled this post "Nesting".  Feels like that is what we are doing! We're almost in our third trimester with two!

We found out that our paperwork is in the hands of the government officials in the girls' country.  We pray that we will be officially matched within the next week or two. Then our facilitator will be able to visit them and get us many more pictures and information on the girls.  We can't wait!

So here are some things we've been up to---

Our adoption/foster care ministry has many resources from Dr. Karyn Purvis.  She is an amazing woman who has helped so many children and families! If you haven't heard of Dr. Purvis, look her up!  She has a great book called The Connected Child and lots of short videos on The Empowered to Connect website.

One of her DVDs we rewatched recently talked about the importance of giving adoptive children sensory activity every two hours.  We are already doing a lot of that with Nate and Ellie but wanted to get some things that are specifically good for the girls.

A tent---which will give them a place that will make their world "small" if needed

An easel---so good to write on a vertical surface.  Love that this has a chalkboard and a whiteboard--the  whiteboard crayons and the chalk are great for giving input when a child writes/draws.

This swing--swinging is also very good for all children.  And this swing helps them feel "safe".

This chair--we went back and forth on this one.  We have learned from our work with Nate that spinning is very important for the vestibular system, and this chair spins in an amazing way.  It also has a cover so that the girls could have some "time away" if they get too overstimulated.

I have been compiling lots of ideas and pulling together the things we have in hopes of having many types of sensory activities for the girls.  One of my goals before we leave to bring them home is to have all my smaller supplies organized---putting it on here so I will maybe get it done!


I will have more posts about sensory topics later---so intriguing and as we have learned with Nate, so often children are struggling with things that can be helped through working their body physically.  So thankful to have our experiences with him to help us prepare for S and V.  We're amazed the more we learn about how important movement is to learning---truly does make such a difference!  And so amazing how God created our bodies to work as a whole--we've learned how many systems are tied to each other.