I was thinking today about what a privilege it is to raise a child. We were given an incredible gift and it's our responsibility to tell her about the love the Lord Jesus has for us.
I know I fail at this so often... yet there are moments in time, things she'll say that makes me feel good inside. Like a few days ago, when she asked me what we'll do when we're in heaven, before I got a chance to reply, she said: "Will we give the Lord Jesus a big hug?" I felt my heart could burst, I couldn't think of anything I'd want to do more.
1 John 4 - (v9) In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. (v10) Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son [to be] the propitiation for our sins. (v19) We love Him, because He first loved us.
"Mama, were you and Baba adopted before me?"
One of the ladies that works in same office as my husband went to China to visit her family this summer. She asked Colin if we wanted anything brought back and of course we couldn't say no to the idea of another Chinese dress!
I googled 'girls cheongsam' and let Lilah view the images and more specifically, the colours. It barely took her two minutes to point out the pale pink dress! Well, the amazing Auntie Lynn picked up exactly the one Lilah wanted with the identical cherry blossom embroidery and all! I'm pretty sure it will be débuted this fall, all being well, when the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival rolls around! Auntie Lynn also got Lilah a little pants and shirt set in pale pink which Lilah absolutely adored and wanted to wear right away - even though it's a size 6 and a wee bit big on the shoulders! And last, but by no means least, she bought Lilah a beautiful pink heart shaped trinket box, with a mirror, which quite literally had Lilah at hello. She is all over it.
I snapped a few pictures of Lilah in all her happiness over her new gifts from China. I was explaining to Lilah how that Auntie Lynn was born in China and lives in Canada now, just like her. Her reply was: "Oh. Does she have tanned skin like me?"
Each year I have gotten some pictures of Lilah with the field of sunflowers at the Experimental Farm in the city.
However, unfortunately I kinda forgot about the sunflowers this summer. Well that's until I was standing in the local grocery store and noticed the big buckets of fresh Sunflowers on sale - it dawned on me that the sunflowers were probably blooming. Well, blooming there were, probably 2 weeks ago, but this week their heads were saging and I about missed their glory days, other than the odd few that were still hanging in there.
Thankfully I still managed to get a few pictures...even though my moving target wasn't interested in pictures. Like myself, I think she was feeling a bit hot under the blistering hot sun.
After a few months of social worker visits and endless reams of paperwork, we signed our completed homestudy today. It will now be sent for approval to the Ontario Ministry, estimated 10 weeks.
We are thrilled. After proclaiming my joy and excitement, Lilah's words from the backseat (on our drive home from the adoption practitioner's office) were: "I'm so excited too Mama. I'm excited to be a big sister soon!"
I have a huge HUGE smile on my face. There are many wonderful emotions that come along with feeling this blessed. "O give thanks unto the LORD, for He is good: for His mercy endureth for ever. Psalm 107:1"
Thank you Lord.
"Your story may not have such a happy beginning
but that doesn't make you who you are,
it's the rest of your story, who you choose to be."
[ Soothsayer - Kung Fu Panada 2 ]
I can safely say that she is the cutest skeleton I've ever seen!
The face above is one of her 'skeleton poses', as she calls it! Ha-ha!
My funny girl saw these pajamas when I was browsing through the pictures of one of my facebook friends. A couple of weeks later, when I was doing some online shopping at Old Navy, I stumbled upon them and Lilah practically begged me to buy them for her! For a child who rarely gets excited over clothes, I (of course), had to buy them.
Today they arrived in the mail.
Heat and all she wanted to try them on and it took about an hour for her to start sweating and finally pull them off! My funny and VERY excited little skeleton! When I was putting her to bed tonight she said, I can't wait to wear my pajamas, they're my favourite in the whole wide world!
Obviously it's still far too warm to wear them, day or night! But guess what? We're going "outback" camping in two weeks! Yes, the kind of camping that you actually have to canoe to get to the campsite and there's a little hut (that you practically have to reverse into) with a VERY deep dark hole for a toilet, I know, gross! I only know this stuff because we did this same trip in July 2005 - it only took us 6 years to pluck up the courage to do it again...ha! No really, it was fabulous! This years trip has been planned and organized by some serious camping folk from our Church, and there are a few families and their kiddies participating. We are very excited, well, you know, as excited as you can get about camping. Ha! But my oh my, it's going to be an unbelievable experience for Lilah!
Anyway, all that to say I thought the glow-in-the-dark skeleton pajamas would be very fun for the whole camping experience!
I absolutely adore my husband. Right next to my Dad, he is the most amazing man I know.
[ Lilah captured a photo of us together, on vacation. She loves to take control of the camera! ]
We are home again after a wonderful holiday to Mont Tremblant, Quebec. I've always known it as a ski resort, in fact, we went to this resort for the first time in December 2000, it was our first Christmas in Canada and we figured we might be feeling homesick, so we decided to hit the slopes and do some freezing to death, ahem, skiing! Ha!
Anyway, it is a safe bet that we love it even more in the summer than we did in the winter. And to be completely honest we've been shaking our heads in disbelief that we haven't made it back here in 10 years, as it's only a 2 hour drive from our home, in Ottawa.
The resort is so very very child friendly and to be honest, you could spend a fortune here on some very fun activites. The restaurants are also fabulous and that is definitely a huge hit for us adults! My oh my, we did have a lot of fun together. Lilah was practically begging us to stay and when she realized it wasn't happening, then started negotating for another trip, SOON! The girl certainly has her head screwed on!
I'll be posting more of the highlights over the next few days, but here are many photos that remind me of all the fun times! The picture above is the view from the hot tub on our hotel roof/balcony, I took it late one evening when we were sitting out there.
