A Valuable Life

Recently my mother gave me an excellent article written by columnist, Cal Thomas.  Cal writes beautifully about his younger brother who had Down syndrome.  In light of a situation that occurred this past week, where doctors in a U.S. hospital have refused to give an organ transplant to a child because she has developmental delays, I thought this article about Cal Thomas's brother was poignant.  Cal describes so clearly about how valuable his brother's life was and how he touched the lives of others.

He also references the following book about the valuable contributions of another child with Down syndrome, Robin Elizabeth Rogers (daughter of Roy and Dale Rogers, famous entertainers) who only lived to 2 years old. This book is wise, touching and informative all at the same time and Tom and I enjoyed it very much.

Angel Unaware on Amazon

As the reading in church this morning spoke about all of us being the temple of the Holy Spirit, I pray that each person whether  "typical" or special needs will be recognized as being valuable and worthy of any type of care they may need.

Here is the link to the article  http://www.calthomas.com/index.php?news=3441

Update on Valentin

We were so happy to find out yesterday that Valentin has a family.  If you would like to read more about them and find out how you can help, here is the link to their blog www.headoptedusfirst.blogspot.com.  Please join us in praying for the Ashton Family as they start out on their third adoption journey.

Help for Valentin

Please check out this post by a family who has adopted from the same orphanage as our dear Julia, about a little boy still there who desparately needs a family.

Help for Valentin!

Christmas Present

Dear Friends and Family,

We always like to watch/read multiple versions of Dicken's "Christmas Carol" over the holidays.  This year we had the added benefit of Joshua appearing in a performance of it at the local theater as one of the Cratchett children.  Consider this post your tour of Christmas Present.

It is hard to believe that one year ago we were picking up our dear little Julia at the orphanage.  Here she is in her Christmas pajamas waiting for Santa this year, with her Mom and Dad.

We definitely did not get a white Christmas (which is Ok by Tom - check out Addisu riding the camel).

The kids definitely had visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads up until Christmas morning.

There were many tasty treats prepared and consumed by all.

Ah the glow of Christmas on the carefully selected and made gifts below...

The little kids were excited when it came time to open their gifts.

And everyone looked beautiful or handsome for church as appropriate.

Our photographer got his own portrait studio equipment...

and yes - there were lots of trains.

That is about all the Christmas joy that will fit in one blog post.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to you and yours!

Thankful Hearts

I love the line in the Veggie Tales song that says "Because a thankful heart is a happy heart...".  Very true.  Well we are thankful for a very blessed weekend gone by.

I'm also learning that in today's cyber world there are Facebook people, blog reading people, email people, and then a very rare breed that do all of the above.  So even though our weekend goings on have been posted multiple times by different people in different places, I'll post it here again for the benefit of those blog only people.

We had a great visit with Andrea G from Canada including a great hike at Mount Mohonk.

And a great visit with Uncle Lau including a Christmas wonderland display.

 Addisu's first visit to see Santa - ever!

And there is the ever adorable Julia.

As we work our way through Advent season, time to prepare to celebrate the coming of the infant Jesus.  Christmas will be here before we know it.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all!  We have been busy all this week preparing for Thanksgiving 2011.  We are very excited in our household, because this will be our first Thanksgiving with Julia at home.  Tom and I met Julia last year on Thanksgiving Day.  That evening we went out to Celentano's Pizzeria, in Kharkov, to celebrate Thanksgiving.  Along with the joy of meeting Julia that day, Tom and I were also sad, since we were missing our children back home very much.  So this year we are really looking forward to spending Thanksgiving together, along with two special guests.

My uncle will be spending the long weekend with us.  He lives a pretty quiet life in rural upstate New York and I'm sure, on some level, he is happy to return to his little home in the country after of a couple of days with our group. :)
 
Our other guest is coming all the way from Canada.  Many of you may also know this special person.  Around our home she is affectionately called, "Andrea the Missionary".  I discovered Andrea's blog when I saw a comment she left on another RR family's blog.  It just so happened that Andrea had been on a mission in another region in Ukraine at the same time Tom and I were over there.  She is home now, so I decided to contacted her.  We have read each others' blogs and exchanged some e-mails.  I could tell from just reading Andrea's posts that she is a special person and I knew we could spend hours talking about orphan care and RR.  I invited Andrea to come and visit with us and I thought Thanksgiving would be a fun time for her to come to the "States".  So, needless to say, we are all very excited that Andrea took us up on our invitation and will be coming for a visit.  We can't wait to hear about all of the missions she has gone on.  You can visit Andrea's blog here.

We hope that all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We pray for safe travel for all those making a trip to visit friends and relatives.

Happy Birthday Julia!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Julia baby! 5 years ago today, you came into this world. We didn't know you then, and we wouldn't for another 4 years. But how amazing and blessed we are to think that a year ago today we were getting ready to travel to you, and a year from then, we now have you home with us! You are funny, sweet, silly, independent- I could go on and on.Your spontaneous little giggles light up our lives more than you know. You have shown me personally things I never would have learned on my own. You have taught me so many things in just one year of being home. I so hope you enjoy your first birthday with us, and I can't wait to celebrate them with you for the rest of our lives.

                                                            January 2011

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September 2011

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                                                               Happy Birthday Beautiful :)