Monday, November 24, 2008

Miss Personality


I’ve posted several times about the pictures that I have received from various people who have visited the Starfish Home and have talked about what a blessing those are. To everyone who took the time to do this, bless your soul! Your kindness is truly appreciated.

There’s another aspect of this that I would like to share as well. Not only have we been blessed with lots of adorable pictures but we have also been given several glimpses into her little personality. The resounding theme on Rebecca seems to be ‘strong willed’ and ‘delightful’. Sounds like she is the perfect child for our family!

Here are a few of the comments I would like to share from people who have spent some time with her:

• Rebecca is one very special little girl, strong willed, independent and determined, and when she smiles or hugs you your heart could burst! She is so curious and hungry to learn and see new things.
• Your Rebecca is sweet, demonstrative and very engaging.
• She’s a hand full!! You will have lots of fun with her! She’s ticklish, has the cutest giggle, loves to run and hide and climbs the ladders at the playground until the highest level! Her eyes just sparkle!!!!! Be prepared to be wrapped around her pinky!!!

All of this is going to be really funny when I finally get around to telling some more about Miss Rebecca!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Yet Another New Picture of Our Baby Girl!



I mentioned in my last post that my cyber-buddy-from-the-Netherlands sent more pictures & I'm just now getting a chance to get them copied over & uploaded. Goodness, you just don't know how much I appreciate this. Nor can you imagine the irresistible urge to just kiss the cheeks off our baby girl!

Come on January!!!

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

More Rebecca Pictures!

There are truly kind, caring and compassionate people all over this world! A month or so ago I crossed cyber paths with a family from the Netherlands who is also adopting a daughter from the Starfish Home. She had received some pictures of her daughter that also included some of ours & she so graciously forwarded them to me. I posted those on 10/31, the day we received our LOA.

They have since traveled to China & have now adopted their daughter. They were able to spend some time at the Starfish Home and she took the time to take a whole boatload of pictures of Rebecca for us! Can you possibly find someone any nicer than that? I'm truly humbled! She sent me a link last week with over 30 pictures on it and I have looked at them so many times. Then they went back late last week to visit again and took even more pictures!

THANK YOU JET! May your kindness come back to you ten-thousand fold!!!

Here's a few of my favorites from the first set she sent us. I'll post some more taken from their last visit later.



Thursday, November 13, 2008

Rebecca - The Story Behind The Name

Some of you may already know, but that’s the name she has now in the Starfish Home and we have chosen to keep it.

Her name is of Hebrew origin and some of the meanings are: Captivating, To Snare and Servant of God.

I’ve shared with some friends and family how different this adoption has been when compared to our adoption of Emma. With Emma’s adoption, there were yahoo groups that had been setup for people logged in during certain times. There was also a yahoo group for the people adopting from our agency that were logged in during the same time frame. Needless to say, I “met” many people who were in the same exact time frame of their adoption that we were. We had fun activities such as cyber showers and post card swaps. It was a lot of fun.

With this adoption, those same types of yahoo groups exist but adoption as we knew it has changed drastically. Namely, the process has slowed wayyyyy down. Given the 2+ years that we have already waited, coupled with being so stinking busy – I just haven’t had the time nor the energy to form the same types of relationships that I had during the first adoption. There have been a few I’ve really connected with, but it’s just different. Hard to explain.

With all that said though, lately I have crossed cyber paths with lots of people who have either been to the Starfish Home, work diligently to raise money for the starfish children’s surgeries or people who will be going there.

Which brings me back to Rebecca’s name ... Believe it or not, but I have been chatting back and forth with the lady who actually named Rebecca! Is that awesome or what! When I asked her how she came about naming her, this was her response:

“We picked Rebecca because we love Biblical names and wanted the Lord's hand to be on her life.”

How appropriate, because that is the same desire we have for our daughter.

We adopted Emma in May of 2005. I looked back through some notes I have kept to see when I first started asking our agency when we could apply to go back for another daughter. The first email I sent was in late September of 2005. Brian & I were talking about it – and I was praying about it weeks before that email was sent. Anyone want to guess when Rebecca was born? She was born early in September of 2005!

I truly believe that even then, the Lord’s hand was on her life.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Miss Rebecca


I received a few new pictures of Miss Rebecca yesterday! January just can't get here fast enough!!!

Friday, November 7, 2008

Stroll Down "Costume Lane"

Looking at the two pictures of Rebecca in her little costumes reminded me of the costumes Emma has had. It's funny because when I had Ryan, I had all of these visions of homemade birthday cakes & homemade costumes. Ryan did indeed have homemade birthday cakes for his first two birthdays. The second one just about did me in though & it's been store bought ever since. it was a train set where the individual train cars were cakes made out of mini-loaf pans. The train tracks were those chocolate wafer cookies and I used mini-marshmallows to make smoke coming up from the train. The cake was pretty cute - my kitchen was a disaster area! Pretty much the same kind of story for his first few Halloween costumes. Poor kid.

Then along comes Emma & my creative juices start flowing again but this time I'm armed with friends who can actually create things!

Check these out.

Emma's first Halloween with us & she goes as an Elephant. The outfit was lovingly made by my friend & co-worker Susan who grew up around the theater and is VERY talented. She made this without a pattern!



Her second Halloween, she was a Candy Corn. This one was made from a pattern by another talented lady who we go to church with. How cute is this?!



For her third Halloween, she was a Scarecrow. Believe it or not, but it was made from the same pattern as the Candy Corn but this time my mom made it. I loved the fabric pieces she picked out for it!



Then of course I've already shown the "Skunk" one for this year - it certainly fit the "little stinker" that she is. But, she's now discovered that her friends wear princess things, pretty things, frilly stuff - so I guess the funny/different stage is over for now.

She put the full court press on trying to get me to go out and buy a princess costume for trick or treating but I told her she would have to wait until next year. We modified the "skunk" as much as we could by adding a tiara - I just haven't had a chance to download the pictures yet. Emma The Princess Skunk.

My poor kids :-)

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Halloween at the Starfish Home




Here's two pictures of Rebecca dressed in her Halloween attire the last two years. In 2007 she was a witch & then this year an adorable little chicken!

Come on TA - I've ready to go get my baby girl!

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

"Emmagination"



Ok, lots to blog about but no time to write.

A quick snippet about Rebecca - Fedex delivered our LOA on Saturday. We filled out the necessary paperwork and then drove to Lexington after church on Sunday & dropped everything off in our agency's mail slot! Hopefully TA will come soon!

On another note, I mentioned a few weeks ago about buying some monogrammed things for the girls. She has the cutest items for sale! Check out her site:
http://emmaginationonline.com/

Here's a few pictures of buttons I bought for their backpacks. I also bought some that I put on lined baskets in the top of their closet. Cute stuff!!!