Shine Like Stars

Shine like stars in the universe as we hold out the Word of life (Phil. 2:15)
We're not trying to be rock stars but just shed some light on a sad and lonely world. Stay tuned for how God works through weak and tired, sometimes really cranky vessels.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Sleeping beauties

Melia has had some issues falling asleep lately. She usually falls asleep really quickly and has no problems sleeping in her crib. For about a week now she's been insane when it comes to sleep time. She screams and freaks out.

We've been doing a lot of rocking her to sleep but she knows that we're going to put her down eventually so she's been resisting falling asleep.

Last Tuesday she had (sorry this is gonna be gross) an explosive poopy when I went in to get her in the morning. This is highly unusual for her, in fact it's never happened before. Since then she has had a really hard time sleeping. So, we've been trying some unconventional things.

Addie's bed (which she doesn't sleep in because she likes to sleep in the boys room) is a day bed and I turned it so the opening is now facing the wall and it's like a really big crib. She was a little bit happier about sleeping there but it didn't quite do the trick, she still flipped out when we left the room.

Then I got really smart. I talked Addie into sleeping with Melia and bang! She now sleeps! The trick is to get Addie to fall asleep first (which isn't really a trick cause she falls asleep 2 seconds after she puts her head down).

Aren't they ridiculously cute?
Melia loves unbuttoning her shirt.....



So, who knows how long this system will last for, but I'm just so glad that Melia's screaming cycle is over. It was really sad.

While I was talking to our agency's family life education lady today. I realized that the poop in the crib was maybe a trigger to her early days as in infant. When we received her referral last September she had an enlarged spleen. All the doctors we talked to said that she could have had a case of malaria or something earlier in her life. So, I'm thinking that she maybe had a lot of messy poopy incidents as babe and last weeks incident triggered emotions in her. Of course all of that is speculation. But it helps for me to think through all of those things so that I can try to help her move past bumps in the road.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Happy Melia Day!!

I can't believe it's been a year since we finally got to hold our baby girl.
She wasn't so sure about us for the first few hours but she quickly realized we weren't giving her up and gave in. I am amazed at how much she has grown since we first met.
Here's the post we wrote a year ago about our first week with Melia Serawit.
I'm pretty amazed that all the things we learned about her in those first 7 days are still true,
well maybe not the shy part.

p.s.
sorry these pictures are so huge, i've got issues...

I am amazed at the joy (and the volume) this girl has brought into our home.
The wonder of Melia has not worn off. All of us are still pretty enamored with her. Just last week Caleb got in trouble for waking her up from her nap because he "missed her".
Anyway, she's super great.
I can't believe it's been a year since she saw us and broke out into tears.
It's amazing how love can heal and how her love has forever changed us.


Friday, December 3, 2010

Advent Devotional

This year we are doing this advent devotional..... The Jesse Tree Journey. It's so easy to do and it's all on line. You can print out each day's devotional or you can just read it online which is what I am doing. It also has all of the ornaments available to be printed. So yesterday we printed all the ornaments, cut them out and glued them on construction paper. Then we painted our tree....



We started out with paint brushes....

Then we decided to dive in and just use our hands.
Melia wasn't too sure about it at first but then she loved it.


Occupational hazard

Cute cast girl!!


Here's our finished project. A little, funky tree.
Each night we will do our devotional and add a paper ornament.

We are also reading this book .... Barthlomew's Passage


I'm all about advent over here!!!