Father’s Day

“Nothing has touched me more deeply than (this honor given to me) by the National Father’s Day Committee.  By profession, I am a soldier and take great pride in that fact. But I am prouder, infinitely prouder, to be a father.  A soldier destroys in order to build.  The father only builds, never destroys. The one has the potentialities of death, the other embodies creation and life.  And while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still.  It is my hope that my son, when I am gone, will remember me not from the battle, but in the home.”  excerpt from a speech given by General Douglas MacArthur in 1942 after receiving an award for being a good father

Today is the official Father’s Day holiday although I think to some degree, every day is Father’s Day.  I loved the way God designed the family unit, and the importance he places on the role of a father. Research has shown the amazing and profound impact a father(or an absent one for that matter) can have on a child’s life.  I would like to take a minute today to honor all Fathers today and specifically, three special ones in my life.  

First, I want to honor my Heavenly Father.  To Him be all Glory, Honor, and Praise.  I am so glad I am grafted into the family tree of Jesus Christ,  my life has been forever changed because of his love and mercy.

Ephesians 1:4-6 [4] For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love [5] he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will -- [6] to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

Second, I want to honor my Earthly Father.  He was the one who provided me with all my basic needs, introduced me(along with my mom) to Jesus Christ, and gave me unconditional love.  He has taught me to persevere when all the odds are against you, and he has taught me to stand up for what I believe in regardless of what anyone else thinks.  Love you dad!

 

Third, I want to honor my husband, Troy, who is an amazing father to our son, Silas.  He is patient, loving, giving, and caring when it comes to Silas; however, most of all he is teaching Silas the importance of keeping Jesus Christ at the center of all aspects of his life.  My love for Troy has grown even more as I have watched him fully embrace his role of being a father.  I am so blessed to be able to share this journey of parenthood with him! 

To all you amazing Fathers out there, have a Blessed and Happy Father’s Day!

Silas’ Gotcha Day

In the middle of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 2 years ago today, we met Silas for the first time.  It is crazy to think it has been 2 years.  It is unreal how time has flown.  We look back at pictures of how tiny he was at 8 months and wonder where that little baby went!?  He is such a little boy now with his own personality and preferences.

Here is the link of our day of meeting Silas and this is the link of our first Gotcha Day!

This is the first picture I ever took of Silas

He was so excited to meet us that he wore himself out!  He was sleeping when we first met him.

First family photo :)

Look how tiny :)

A year later and so much different later, here is is after eating his Gotcha Day cake last year…

Today, Silas helped Amber make his brownies that we’d have after supper.  The boy LOVES helping his momma in the kitchen.  He usually does a good job unless we’re not giving him instructions and then his curiosity takes over and you don’t know what you’ll end up with :)

He also has started doing “faces” … it’s pretty comical to see how he does each one as they have changed and migrated over time.  Here’s some still shots of them (you can see some video in a minute)

Show me your happy face.

Show me your surprise face.

What about your mean face?  (it’s hard for him to do this sometimes as you can see a little smile in this pic)

Let’s see your sleeping face

Kid cracks me up.

Below is a video Amber did after lunch of him talking about his day and showing you what he can do now…

 

Tonight, we went to Chuy’s for supper (we went there last year so it may become a tradition).  Silas LOVES their creamy jalapeño sauce and we usually end up getting him a bowl of his own as you can see below.

As we were leaving, we had a hostess snap a picture of us.  There was one of those ‘funny’ mirrors that Silas died laughing looking at it.  He did not want to stop to take his picture (hence the staredown).

We then came home for the brownies that Silas made earlier.  As you can see in the video, he was a little excited for them!

And just to show how much he’s changed, here is the video from last year’s…his smile and look away always makes me smile :)

 

I still can’t believe it’s been 2 years.  Thinking what 2 more years will be like … wow, he’ll be 4.5 years old.  I better stop with those thoughts.  Enjoy one day at a time.  Cherish each moment.  Build up and not tear down.  Words to live by…

And we can’t look at all these pictures, especially the ones in Ethiopia, without thinking about our daughter.  So much of me misses Ethiopia.  We honestly haven’t focused much on the slowdown and delays in Ethiopia on here.  It is SO easy to have a complaining heart and we fall into that trap often.  And we KNOW with no doubt that God chose Silas to be our son.  And we have no doubt that He is doing the same for our daughter.  Waiting is tough.  No doubt about that either.  We can’t wait until we get to see her face, meet her, and bring her forever home to have another day of celebration in our house.  Until then, we will trust.  We will believe.  And we will enjoy each day with Silas.

WE LOVE YOU SILAS!

DAYS OF SUMMER

Summer…my favorite time of year!  I love everything that comes with it…ball games, swimming, watermelon, HOMEMADE ICE CREAM, festivals, etc…  I just love spending time outdoors and summer is very accomodating to that:)  June is always a busy month for us because Troy’s birthday is June 4, Silas’ Gotcha Day is June 15, and we always have Father’s Day to celebrate somewhere in there too!  So far this summer we have been to a Nashville Sounds game, spent lots of time tending to our garden, attended two airport homecomings for friends that brought home their children from Rwanda and South Korea, attended a church social,and a playdate with a lot of other Ethiopian adoptive families.  We are certainly blessed!  I have included a few pictures from the playdate we had with the adoptive families yesterday.  It was at Silas’ buddy, Lucy Lane’s house, and it was partly in honor of Silas and Lucy Lane being forever home 2 years tomorrow.  Kristi, Lucy Lane’s mom was so kind to host everyone.  Silas loves going over there because they have the best toys!  Hopefully, next summer our daughter will be in some of these pictures:)

 

Silas and Lucy.  Don’t they look thrilled about having their picture taken together?

Silas was in heaven with all the ride on toys he could sit on and pretend to drive:)

Stealing a kiss from sweet Lucy!

The water slide and pool that provided hours of fun!

This precious boy just came forever home in February..

He has grown so much since his airport homecoming last year

Lucy’s older brother, Hal.  He was so cooperative to smile for the camera!

Fun times on the slide

Elijah is another one of Silas’ good buddies.  He’s been home almost a year!

Three Ethiopian cuties

Overall, it was amazing to see all these beautiful children now forever home and thriving!  Here’s to a great rest of the summer!

“Superman was adopted” recap

OK, I’ve owed you guys this post for a long time.  By this point, I know you all know that I am on a BAD blogging schedule (and I keep telling you for good reason and I promise to tell you soon on WHY that reason is).  Many of you have asked if you can still order shirts and the short answer is YES BUT NOT QUITE YET.  They will be available soon (back to the reason on WHY the blogging delays).  I will let you know here in the next week hopefully!

So, when we mailed out our shirts last month, we asked people to send in pictures of them wearing them … here are the pictures that we received (be ready for A LOT  of cuteness!)

Our friends’ boys who are currently adopting from Ethiopia with our agency AGCI. 

 

We traveled to Ethiopia with this family!  How cute are these twins!?!?!  I can’t believe how big they’ve gotten – they were so TINY when we saw them last time…

Another friend’s son whose family is also adopting from Ethiopia with our agency. 

OK, on the next 2, we couldn’t decide which picture was cuter so I had to post both!

 

 

Our good friends here in town that have been SO supportive of our adoption of Silas and his baby sister.  Their little boy is always ON THE MOVE – hence the blurriness :)

Local friends who have 2 adoptive daughters that are so sweet!

 

How adorable is this boy!?!

 

OK, good local friends who just got home from adopting their 2 children from Rwanda.  What’s funny is that they thought they would get a referral of children who were a little older but were surprised (and thrilled!) of the referral of their younger kiddos.  So, they got the shirts before their referral and that is why the shirts are SOOO BIG on them (especially little Hope!) :)  Too funny and cute!

 

A family who adopted her little girl from Ethiopia with our same agency and travelled a few months before us…

And what’s crazy is that our friends who let us use their Superman design just got home a week ago today from South Korea with their son!  How amazing was that homecoming!  Here are a few pics from the airport of some of us sporting our shirts in support of their adoption…

 

They arrived at the airport right at Silas’ naptime – all-in-all, he did pretty good for a 20 minute power nap on the way to the airport

 

HERE IS THE NEWEST MEMBER OF THEIR FAMILY! 

 

Happy and tired momma being greeted by Silas and Amber.

Proud big brother and daddy greeting everyone.

Airport homecomings are so incredible to me.  It’s a small glimpse of what I think arriving in heaven will be like.  So many of our family and friends who went before us waiting at the gates for us to arrive forever home and cheering us on and encouraging us.  There are so many representations of the Gospel in the world of adoption.  This is just one more to add to the list…

Finally, we want to THANK YOU for all the support with these shirts … you guys blessed us so much and blew our expectations out of the water.  THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

Happy Belated Birthday!

This is Amber, and I hijacked our blog to wish my husband a Happy Birthday( a day late..his Birthday was actually yesterday but I just didn’t get the post done)!  There are so many things I love about my husband, but here are just a few: he puts Christ 1st in all that he does, he is a great Spiritual leader, he is the most generous person I know, and he is a great dad!  I am so glad that God brought us together,and I am happy I get to celebrate another year of life with him!  

Silas is ready to help me make daddy’s cake

The ingredients for our peanut butter oreo ice cream cake(so I made up the recipe but it actually turned out pretty good).  Troy(and Silas) love the peanut/butter chocolate combination

The finished product! As you can tell, I was a biology major NOT art!:)

My 2 favorite guys!

Happy Birthday Troy! 

Love,

Amber

P.S. My goal is actually to start doing some of the posts for our family since Troy is always busy with his various projects.  We’ll see how well I keep up! Have a blessed week!