Titus turns two!

Titus celebrated his second birthday in style!  We started the morning off at Chick-fil-A.  He got a free stuffed cow and sticker as a birthday present.  We ate and played for a while, then headed back home to get the house set up for our party.

We had a camping theme, with tents set up with toys inside in the back yard.  The sand box was the hit of the day, though.  Further in the back yard we had a bonfire for s’mores.

Titus loved his cool camping cake!  Thanks to our friend Betsy Burdett who make this awesome cake!

I said “No presents, please.”  Nobody listened.  😉

Look at that handsome birthday boy!  Two years of this cutie pie being alive on this earth.  We have new traditions we are starting in our home.  We have a memory verse of the month that we read and practice every night before bed.  He’s not ready to do this yet, but we’re starting the tradition now, so that when he’s ready to memorize scripture, we will all have the habit ingrained.  Right now, it’s still a great reminder for mom and dad!

Also, every night we pray with him and over him.  He prays using his five fingers to remind him.  We point to his thumb and “Praise the Lord”.  His index finger reminds us to “Confess sins”.  The middle finger reminds us to mention our “Thankfulness”.  For the ring finger we “Pray for others” and for the pinky finger reminds Titus to “Pray for myself”.  Again, this is Andy and I going through the motions teaching him this, but one day he will be able to do it on his own.  Andy and I always pray blessings over him such as from Ephesians 3:14-19 “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

We want to take every opportunity to pray with him and for him.  He loves to sit down at the dinner table, grab one of Andy’s fingers and mine with his hands, squint his eyes closed, and pray.  It is so precious.  The Lord is really grabbing his heart already and I can’t wait to see how Titus grows in His grace!

~Rebecca

 

Christmas Angel Tree for Titas!

We are so excited to have Titas as our Christmas Angel Tree child this year.  We have the opportunity to try to raise $1,000 for his grant fund this Christmas season.  When he is matched with his forever family, they will have the blessing of the grant to apply toward their adoption costs.

Many families feel the high cost of adoption keeps them from providing a family to an orphan. We are helping ease that burden to the wonderful future forever family for Titas.  God knows who his family will be and we get a chance to provide a blessing for them.

We would love to have your prayer and financial support.  This is a great opportunity to be a blessing to others this holiday season.  If you donate $35 or more directly to Titas’ fund, you will receive the Christmas ornament pictured above.  Click here to go to Titas’ donation page.

Titas’ profile info:

Boy, born January 2009
PRC
Down Syndrome

“Titas is a leader in his orphanage. He is well liked by his peers and the caregivers. He has big, double lidded eyes and he is very gentle. He can understand much more than he can say. He goes to a special class, and he helps with the younger children in the class.He loves to play new games and sometimes he is naughty!”

Ha, I always love the ones that are sometimes naughty!

We are also having a Just Love Coffee fundraiser for Titas.  Click here to buy coffee and accessories for Christmas gifts, and we get a portion of the proceeds to send to Titas.

Stay tuned for opportunities to buy t-shirts, bracelets, a matching grant, and a raffle.  ~Rebecca

 

Discovery Center

We have a new favorite place – The Discovery Center, the children’s science museum in Murfreesboro.  We go there two or three days a week now.  There’s always something special going on like wetland walks, animal talks, making fun snacks, crafts, and learning about different cultures.  Titus does his happy scream when we pull into the parking lot.  There’s an outside playground and a trail to walk around the wetland area and look at the animals in their natural habit.  Inside there are tons of different activities on two floors.  Some days he loves walking up the stairs and riding back down the elevator.  He thinks it’s part of the attractions.  We love watching him learn and play!

(When a croissant calls, you just need to answer it!)

He always amazes us with how quickly he learns.  If you show him something once, he just takes off with it!  Everyone who works there knows who he is now.  He’s a little celebrity, and they all get excited when he walks through the doors.  He’s growing fast, but we are enjoying him at this cute phase in his life.  When I look back on my life I want to remember moments like these, not things like worrying about the dishes or laundry.  I’m constantly reminding myself to live in the moment and spend as much quality time with my boy as possible!  Ephesians 5:15-16 “Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity…”

 

Shoes for Orphan Souls

Titus and I donated shoes, socks, and shoelaces to Shoes for Orphan Souls.  We went shopping together and he helped pick out the items we bought.  There was a drop off location at a church right down the road from us.  The shoes will be taken to orphans around the world.  The workers will wash the children’s feet and place the shoes right on their feet, all while sharing the story of Jesus with them.  We prayed for the children who will receive the shoes and prayed for the Lord to prepare their hearts to hear the gospel.

Titus had a lot of fun pulling the handle on the dropbox.

There’s still a few more days to participate this year.  The last day to drop off new shoes, socks, and shoelaces is August 31.  Look at the website to find a drop off location near you.  There are a ton of locations in our area.

http://www.shoesfororphansouls.org/

Check it out and be a blessing to orphans around the world.  We’re not all called to adopt, but we’re all called to do something!  This is a great way to get involved.  ~Rebecca

 

Happy Referral-versary!

One year ago today I made plans to meet two friends at the park with their daughters adopted from China.  They met with me to answer questions about the process and offer their support.  As we were playing, I got a phone call from a number in Virginia.  I hadn’t even saved our Family Coordinator’s phone number in my contacts yet.  I thought, “Hmm, who’s calling me from Virginia?  Wait, our adoption agency is in Virginia!”  We had applied to our adoption agency in March, then specifically to the China Waiting Child Program.  When we filled out the application, our Family Coordinator told us to expect a referral (information about a specific child) pretty soon because we were open to either gender and a variety of medical special needs.  In adoption world, I though “soon” meant three months, but here she was calling me one week later!  I called her back right away and she said she was calling me with a referral and wanted to talk to Andy and I.  She would give us the basic info on the phone, then send us an email with medical information, reports from the orphanage workers, and pictures.  In what I believe to be the greatest self-control of my life, I told her I would wait to get the info until my husband and I were together.  I didn’t want to make any kind of decision on my own.  I wanted to go through all of this together.  I made plans to call her back when I got in touch with Andy.

Andy was working that day, and I called him and left a voice mail that we had a referral already.  When he called me back a few minutes later, I think he was out of breath!  I told him to meet me at his real estate office ASAP.  It was about 10:15, and he said he could meet me there about 11:00.  I went back to meet my friends and told them I just got my referral call.  One of my friends was so excited she started jumping up and down.  They both stopped and prayed with me for wisdom as we looked at the information and decided if this was our child!  I left the park and drove to meet Andy.

I waited about 30 long minutes for him, so I prayed and waited impatiently.  When he got there, he jumped in the car with me and we prayed and made the call together.  Our Family Coordinator told us the basic info, “He’s a boy, born 10/12/11, so he’s 10 months old, and he has an outer ear deformity.”  I immediately started crying and when we hung up the phone, I said, “That’s our boy!”  God had given us a feeling that we would get a boy, and also that he would be still very young.  We had opened ourselves up to many different medical needs, but we had requested something in the “ear” category, either deafness or outer ear malformations.  I feel that God had prepared us in advance for who would be our son!  Our Family Coordinator said she was emailing us the file, and we would need to let her know whether or not we wanted to go ahead and pursue it.  I wanted to look at the medical information first to try to remain as objective as possible, but when I opened the email this picture popped up:

Of course I immediately started crying even more.  Look at that cute little baby boy.  He’s mine!

I would have probably said yes to just about any medical needs at that point after looking at that cuteness.  As we read through his file though, we were amazed at how minor his “special need” was.  It was almost anticlimactic after all we had prepared ourselves for.  We saw information about the city where he lived – Baoji.  We googled the city and I thought, “Wow, that’s kinda far out there.”  But I would also go as far as needed to pick up that cute little nugget.  Andy and I both had to go back to work, so we prayed, gave the Family Coordinator the go-ahead, and I tried to pull my messy self together to go to work.  I remember that whole night every time I got a break I would pull up those cute pics and just stare at them.  We were required to talk to our pediatrician before we could officially accept the referral, but that was just a formality to me.  Andy and I had prayed and agreed right there in his work office.

Over the next few days we went through the official steps to pursue the adoption of Wei Zhe Min and we were thrilled, but the only hard part was because we were still compiling our dossier, we could not tell our good news!  We needed to finish our dossier, send it to China, then wait for our official Referral Approval from China.  Well, we didn’t end up getting that until December 21st!  So we had to keep those cutie pie pictures a secret for almost four months.  Wow, good news is hard to keep!

It was hard as well that we were not able to request updates or send him gifts  until we got the official approval from China.  His first birthday and Christmas passed without us being able to send him anything.  I knew he was in a good place, and well taken care of.  I prayed for him most of all on his first birthday.  I was so excited that on “gotcha day”, the nanny brought a flash drive with pictures and videos from the orphanage, and it included this picture of his birthday party.

Look at that king for the day!  Obviously he was well-loved.

Today to celebrate our referral-versary, we went to the park where I was when I got the first call.  How fun to have him there with us as we looked back on how everything had changed in the past year!

Hebrews 10:36
“You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.”  Praise the Lord for fulfilling His promises so fully and with such preciousness!  ~Rebecca

 

Being cute is a full time job…

… and Titus is working overtime!

 

June fun

Titus’ first haircut – before, during and after!  He was so good and our friend Amanda did such a great job letting him feel the clippers and hold a comb before she started.  And she worked fast, too!  She would get his attention on one thing and just snip away and she was done before we knew it!  Just when I think he couldn’t look any more handsome, the bar gets raised.

We have some cool new toys.  The playhouse was a great garage sale find.  Not only was it cheap, but the lady who sold it to us asked her boyfriend to deliver it in his truck.  It’s hard to find that kind of service these days.  Also, a great friend gave us this red wagon and Titus loves to ride in it.  It’s nice because he can take some toys along for the ride, too.  Plus, Rocky has a bonus place to hang out while Titus plays!  And now he has discovered the piano.  Sometimes he pounds on the keys like little boys usually do, but many times he plays very gently, a few keys at a time.  I’m sure we have a musical prodigy on our hands.

We had a great time at Myrtle Beach.  Titus loved to play on the beach, but he loved the pool and lazy river most of all.  It was so cool to be with him as he saw and played in the ocean for the first time.  The resort where we stayed had a few little ponds, too, so he got to feed the ducks and see the turtles and swans.

Andy took Mr. Man to Steak ‘n Shake.  Seriously with the cuteness?!

As you can see we are totally enjoying our summer.  We have also gone to the splash pad and to the drive-in movies again.  We still have a lot to do on our summer fun list.  I’ve never had so much fun checking things off a list.  We are blessed!  ~Rebecca

 

Father’s Day

Happy first Father’s Day to Andy!  I wanted to plan a fun weekend to spend together to celebrate, so we started the day on Saturday at the RC – Moonpie Festival.  We celebrated appropriately.  We walked around the cute downtown area of Bell Buckle, ate some fair food for lunch, then sat down under some shade to wait for the parade.  We heard the parade was starting at 11:00, and somebody else said 11:30.  At 11:50 we decided to leave.  As soon as we stood up, our spots were taken.  As we started to walk to our car, the parade started coming down the road toward us.  Oh, well!  We kept walking to our car, and stopped under various trees along the way to watch the parade.  We went back home for a little nap, then we went back out for phase two of our celebration.

We went to the drive-in theater to see “Man of Steel”.  We got there early so we had plenty of time to play on the swings before the movie started at dark.  The movie started at sleepy time, so we hoped Titus would sleep through the movie.  We changed him into his pjs and had his blanket ready.  And it worked, he passed out!  He only woke up one time, and Andy got him back to sleep so it worked out perfectly!  We had a great time.  The weather was beautiful, and I think we enjoyed watching the moon and stars even more than the movie screen.

Sunday morning Titus got up early, but we let Daddy sleep in.  When he got up we ate a quiche that I made, and he opened his presents.  I got all my ideas from Pinterest, of course, and I was so excited about how everything turned out.  The poem on this picture says: “I love to wear my Daddy’s shoes, though my feet are small.  When they are in my Daddy’s shoes, I feel ten feet tall.  Someday I’ll grow to fill them, I only hope to be, as fine a man and great a dad as my Dad is to me.  Happy Father’s Day!  I Love You!  Love, Titus”.  Awwww!!!

Mom and Dad and Tim and Christy came over in the afternoon, so everyone got to hang out and play with Titus, then open some presents.  Apparently Dad’s card from Tim and Christy was pretty funny!

For snacks we enjoyed a Star Wars feast with Yoda Soda, Vaderade, Wookie Cookies, Ewok Gummies, Han’s Rolos, Droid Chips, Jar Jar of Gungan Snacks, and Leia Buns.

I think the guys had a great time, and I hope we made them feel special.  I appreciate my father and Titus’ father for both being such awesome dads.  And I’m thankful to the Heavenly Father for making it all possible!  I’m thankful for His adoption of us and I’m thankful He put the desire in our hearts to adopt a child of our own.  We’ll never be the same!  ~Rebecca

Romans 8:15-  For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!”

 

Is it June already?

Is it June already?  When did that happen?  Titus will be 20-months-old this week.  Well, I’ve tried to save him some future embarrassment by not posting bathtub pictures, but I just can’t help myself!  We have let his hair grow since we got him and it has been looking good, but this week it’s starting to get out of control, so we made a haircut appointment.  We’ll see how that goes.  Fingers crossed.

I had a fun baby shower at work last week.  It was scheduled for when we were in China, so we finally had it and I got this too cool diaper cake!  I also got some cute outfits, books, and toys.  It was actually neat to have it after we got home, because I was able to say exactly what size clothes he is wearing, and what kinds of toys he enjoys and what we didn’t have yet.

We have found some great stuff at garage sales lately, as well as friends giving us some great toys.  He now has a playhouse, picnic table, little red wagon, and a rocking horse!  He loves to be outside, whether riding in his wagon, stroller, playing at the park, or playing outside.  As long as his little bare feet are not touching grass, he is ok!

Last Friday we had a fun evening.  We went out to dinner with friends and made the kids pose together on the sidewalk afterwards.  They were super cute.  Titus kept grabbing Amber Joy’s arm and poking her with his spoon during dinner.  Such a boy.  And she’s such a girl.  So different and so funny to see them together.

After dinner we were headed to the airport to greet our friends who were bringing home their two new boys from China.  We checked on the flight status, and it was delayed an hour, so we just had to stop by Bass Pro Shop.  It was Titus’ first time there and he loved looking at the fish in the big tank.  He kept giving them the “come here” hand.  I think he wanted to pet them like he does to Rocky.  They’re lucky to be in the tank.  It’s hard for a little boy to be gentle.  Looks like he wanted to pet the bear, too!

Later that evening we made it to the airport to see our friends and their two new boys, ages two and three.  They had a huge cheering section to welcome them home.  It was great to be a part of the welcoming committee.  It was also great being on this side of the situation – not feeling sleep deprived, fuzzy headed, lugging bags and putting little boys into car seats for the first time.  Whew, it was not so long ago, but we have come so far!

Titus is napping over two hours on some days.  Those are the days you see me with a big smile on my face.  He is talking all the time and saying a variety of different sounds.  He’s clearly saying “mama”, “baba” (daddy), “hi” and “hello”.  I think he’s going to be a big talker.  We just laugh at all the funny things he does now, I’m sure it will be even funnier when he really starts talking.  I am really living in the moment and enjoying his littleness, but I’m just curious about what he’ll be like when he’s older.

Now that he’s here and we see how wonderful he is, the unknown future is fun to think about.  When we were waiting to meet him, the fear of the unknown was the hardest part.  The only thing I would change about this process is that I would go back in time and tell myself to calm down.  God gave me so much relief from my fears and that brought me closer to Him, so it wasn’t wasted time in that respect, but I did waste time worrying about things that never happened.  And if some of those things did happen, God would have gotten us through that situation, anyway.

Now as a family we are enjoying praying together, reading scripture, reading devotional books, and going to church.  Titus prays with us.  When we each grab one of his hands he squeezes his eyes together for a split second.  Sometimes when we’re out during the day and I grab his hand, he starts to “pray”, so when he does that I just stop and pray right there.  Faith like a child!  How great to learn more about the Lord as we try to teach our son to follow Him!  ~Rebecca

 

My first Mother’s Day

What a fun first Mother’s Day for me!  We went to the early service at church and I had Titus dressed up with his cute dress shirt and tie.  I tried to get a picture of him all day, but he was not still for a moment.  He is getting more and more independent every day, and he was certainly on the move today!  He was occupied with Andy’s phone for a while so I could snap a pic before we changed out of our church clothes.  I told Andy that I didn’t want to do traditional Mother’s Day stuff today.  I just wanted to hang out with the family and do something relaxing and enjoyable.  So Titus took me to Sonic for breakfast, then gave me my presents.  I got some of my favorite snack foods, super soft pjs, and a wallet.  I love it all!  The card said everything was from Titus, but he had a little bit of help from Andy, I believe.  🙂

Andy made plans with my family to meet at the park for lunch, games, and playground fun.  We had a great time.  The weather was nice and sunny and just a little bit cool in the shade.  We played bocce and baggo (cornhole) Titus ran around on the playground for a while.  He also has a Little Tikes scooter he rides a little bit, but he has much more fun pushing it up and down the sidewalk.  He cracks himself up!

We gave my mom a tray that we made from a Pinterest idea.  I actually followed through with something I pinned!  I thought it turned out really cute and Grandma loved it, of course.

Titus played hard all day, and when we got home, he crashed.  Being the joy of everyone’s lives is exhausting work, apparently!

I had a great time today, just being with the people I love most!  I feel like today was a celebration of us being together as a family.  Titus said “mama” all day today, so that made me feel awesome.  I am still so grateful for how well he has attached to us as parents.  God designed the family to have two loving parents, and I think Titus feels at home with us because this is how God designed it to be.  God has a special plan for Titus’ life.  We celebrate the fact that God the Father adopted us as sons, and we have become joint heirs with Jesus Christ.  We get to reflect this unbelievable truth through our earthly relationship with Titus.  The only problem is that means Andy and I are reflections of God in this relationship.  Reality check.  I feel very unworthy of that task, and I feel overwhelmed by my own sin and “human-ness”.  But God’s grace is so good.  He fills my tank back up when I feel like I am doing a bad job, when I’m stressed, and when there’s more laundry and dishes than I ever thought possible.

I heard this scripture on the radio this week of some words Jesus spoke while he was hanging on the cross: John 19:26-27 ‘When Jesus saw His mother and the disciple He loved standing there, He said to His mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then He said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.’    While he was on the cross, Jesus was making sure his mother was taken care of from an adopted son.  People tell us that Titus is blessed to have us as parents, but we are truly the ones who are blessed.  The Lord blessed us with a son with such a joyful character.  He loves to share, and he is very concerned when other people cry.  His is so sweet and affectionate.  He has been put in our family for a reason, and we can’t wait to see the ways he can affect others.  I am a blessed mama!  ~Rebecca