Mother's Day

Well, 

I know that Father's Day has now gone and passed but I still have yet to post about Mother's Day! I've had it ready and written for a while, I just haven't gotten around to hitting that "publish" button. Talk about lazy! Anyway, here it is :) 

We got up early Mothers Day morning (all of us trying to look nice for the occasion) and had a nice morning at church and then headed to Newport beach for the day, just us girls, my mom, and grandma. 

 This is also Maida's first time at the beach. She was so excited. 

My lovely grandma with the littles before we headed out :) 

Walking on the pier. 

Trying to look at the camera without squinting :). I love these girls! 

When we finally got down to the sandy part of the beach Maida was just completely mesmerized. She'd never seen so much sand in her life! She was pretty sure that she was going to fall through the ground, haha.

 

After a little bit though she was fine and was galavanting around, totally loving it! 

These two were just so cute that day, we all ended taking a ton of pictures of them. 

Maida also had never seen kelp before and really didnt want anything to do with it. Big sister Bella showed her that it was ok. 

 

She eventually warmed up to that as well. 

Some of the big ones :) 

Bella loves her California beaches!

Discovering the ocean. 

Happy girl! 

My mom wanted to get a picture of all of her kids, sadly though my brother couldn't be there that day. Sevi will (Lord willing!) be here with us next Mothers Day to share in all this fun and love. 

True sisters, no matter how they came to be. 

Now for some flashback photos! Me with my mama when I was just a wee one

I love my mom so much and am so proud of her and so thankful for raising me to love Christ, to love my family, to love to play, and to learn. I hope one day I can be just 1/100th of a woman and a mother that my mom is. 

 

Love you mom!

Gabby

He Has the Whole World in His Hands

Today I was going to write about Mother's Day and something else that has recently come up in my life, but something so amazing happened in these last two days and I just had to write about it.

Our household has been very blue lately. Fundraising sometimes can be very disheartening, especially with so many people out there who oppose it, yet we still have so much funds to raise. Originally when we were in Congo last November we thought for sure we would be traveling again by this June to get Sevi, well things are looking very bleak in that regard, pushing Sevi further and further away. It was tough staying positive but God always has control!

Last night as my family went through our garage full of donated items for our adoption yard sale we got a surprise donation from someone we didn't even know, a stranger! Our spirits were definitely lifted, but it gets better! Today my mom and I went with Maida and Bella to watch my sister' string quartet preform at her college. On the way home we talked about what our next line of actions should be in the adoption process...etc. when we got home we checked our mailbox, hoping for something from USCIS. Instead we got another surprise donation! Our spirits are so lifted and we feel rejuvenated and ready to go! God always provides, He takes care of His own, He has the whole world in His hands and I am so very glad for that! 

Gabby

The Process

There is lots going on in our adoption process for Sevi right now!

A couple months ago a few families traveled to pick up their children and so we were blessed with getting some new pics of Sevi.

One of the girls who left had been there at the orphanage with Sevi for quite some time and was a close friend of hers. I can't imagine how sad Sevi felt when she left, but I am glad that her other friend, W, was and is there to keep her company :) (For privacy reasons some of the childrens faces have been hidden)
                 

Sevi with her friend Delice and her new mom

Three amigos!

We also have gotten to send her several care packages, and got to see the video of her getting her family book! (She says my name somewhere in there ^^)!

http://youtu.be/4DdPPHQxCNU (link to the video)

She was pointing out Maida to one of the nannies here

She wanted to show everyone her new family :)

Including Mama Julia of course

My mom sent her a picture of our entire family and a picture of us two (the only ones of us she has actually met and really knows). Our in country coordinator said that when she got those pictures she was so happy and showed everyone in the orphanage, we were told that she keeps them somewhere safe and special.

Here are some more photos that have trickled in over the course of these past few months.

Getting her nails painted

She is too cute!

She loves to sing and dance! Almost all the videos we have are of Sevi singing and dancing.

About a month or two ago an old friend contacted my family and told us that her brother lives in Congo right now and would love to go visit Sevi for us and tell us how she's doing, to be able to talk to her and translate all that we wanted to say to her, and take pictures of course! What a blessing that was for us, and other families as well!

Among other things Joel and his friends brought the kids some good ol' American baseball t's :)

Not only did this man and a couple of his friends go and hang out with the kids and take pictures for us, but they brought toys, and ice cream, and tried to and gave us suggestions on how to make the orphanage a better place with what they had to work with (he said he was already very impressed with the way the orphanage was run). It was just so great and we, along with many of the families in our agency, had our spirits finally lifted after a lot of tough roads in all of our adoption journeys. Before I get into that though I would like to write down what our friend said about Sevi, specifically.

This is what he said:
"Sevi does read. They do have classes in the morning for a couple hours. She is absolutely a beautiful young girl (Moi siki Toko in Lingala). She has a heart warming smile (that includes her eyes!). She is quite by nature. She does play, does warm up, does spend time playing with the other kids and is in a "big sister" role for quite a few of them, helping out where she can. Piggy back rides, changing clothes, setting them up for naps."

 "When asked she said her favorite food was spaghetti, but then changed her mind and said any kind of meat" :)

Something our friend told us about Sevi though made me a little sad, but all the more eager to bring her home. When we asked if she was excited, scared, happy, or sad about coming home to us he said: "I think Sevi is concerned it won't come to fruition (that we weren't really coming for her) so her hopes won't be to high..." :(

We areso thankful that Joel went to visit the orphanage and give us an update on how she's doing

He then went on to say (bragging on my sister a little here): "She has an awesome spirit, though! Holy cow is this kid wonderful! Don, Allen (his friends that went with him) and I all thought that and had independent conversations on it, unsolicited. She actually touched all 3 of us above and beyond the rest of the kids." Wow! We were so touched that he would say that. Oh we can't wait to bring her home!

Speaking of which this is the not so fun part :(. There has apparently been a lot of changes in the process on the Congo side of things which has been slowing things down quite a bit as they try to figure it all out. Part of the new ways is a longer wait period for her investigation and after it. The wait time has been pushed from a month to anywhere from 3-6 months! We are so bummed! We were hoping to travel in June or July at the latest, but it doesn't seem possible right now :( I know we just have to wait and trust in The Lord, His plans are always better then ours. We also are really done with fundraising (this topic is another post to come) but know we have to continue on to raise the last half of the money needed.

This past week we did get to do something very exciting though...We got to file the i600 for Sevi! We got her adopton decree and passport a couple weeks ago and were able to file last week. Hopefully that will all be finished soon and then it's on with the investigation. After that we just have her visa we need! So close, yet still so far away :( we are trusting and waiting though! Keep praying for us, that my family would be strong and that we will wait on The Lord and trust Him to provide.

Gabby

A Lot Going On Here

Hey everyone! Here is my much needed update on everything thats been going on here lately.

So a couple of Saturdays ago my family (well three of my sisters, including Maida, my mom and I) ran a 5k to help our friends, the Weavers, bring home their little girl home from the Congo (remember Sevi's friend I told you about?)

This is most of us who made up the team. As it was in Hollywood (we dont live to close to Hollywood) we had to get up at 3:30am to make it to the race before it started at 6:00am.

 

The Weaver Family

 

Maida (who was our mascot ^^) slept pretty much the whole race

 



 

 

This was our group picture after the race. We all had a lot of fun :)

 

After the race we dropped my younger sister Tia off at my brother and sister-in-laws house to spend a few days with them and our niece (see how well shes watching her, lol)

 

          And then my niece came to our house for a few days.             

...these two certainly have fun together and like getting in trouble too. Do you see their guilty faces?

 

We also got to have some old friends come over for a catch up/music day. We had lots of fun and all went and got to watch a concert together.

 

My two older sisters (Dominique is on the left and Kat is on the right) and I used to go out together all the time, to the library (our favorite place!), the mall, or a park, but as we have gotten older we have had less oppotunities to have our girl time. The other day we were blessed with having no school or work, at the same time! So we took hold of the time we had and got to go out together 

When we moved last year from L.A. we brought all of our animals with us, one of them being our two year old cat, Tristen. We were told to keep him (he was an in door out door cat) inside for two weeks before we let him out so he could get use to the house and always know where it was. Well we kept him in for over a month, just to be safe. About two weeks after we let him out though he didnt comeback :( We loved him very much and he was such a good cat. We were all sad and heartbroken, not wanting another cat because we knew we coudn'r replace him. Well, a year later (we still miss him) my mom said she thought it was time we got a kitten again (two this time!). Meet Charlie (left) and Phoebe (right)!

After my mom and I got home from Congo we missed being there a lot and eating the food. One day when we were out and about near our home we found a small resturaunt that looked tasty. When we went inside and tried some of the food my mom and I squealed with joy. They used many of the spices and same kinds of food that they had in Congo. It has now become my mom and my new little place to eat :)

Ok last picture ^^. My mom, Tia, and Bella wanted to get out some water colors and pastels and do a craft together. I thought it was so cute I had to share! Didn't they do a good job?

 

 

Sorry everything was so random today, I just thought i'd give a little update on what going on here in our day to day life. I will try to get a post up about all the happanings with Sevi tomorrow (lots of stuff happaning there!)

Gabby