The Waring's Journey: My Baby Girl is now 10

Monday, December 15, 2008

My Baby Girl is now 10

Saturday we celebrated Addison's 10th birthday. This year she wanted to have a skating party with her family, birth family (Travis, Julie, TJ & Tyler) and a few close friends. I borrowed a camera and nabbed some very priceless pictures. For some reason, today...Julie allowed me to take pictures.

She even smiled. LOL :))

(Julie hates her picture taken so it's a real treat to be able to blog these ones.)

This first one is the cake Julie made for Addison. Addi, wanted a florescent one with black. Julie makes the most beautiful cakes and this one was the BOMB! We loved it!

Oh..the camera I borrowed has no screen and no view finder. You just point it and shoot. So I wasn't sure what I was actually getting until I got home and downloaded them.

That's why some of the pictures are off center.

Addi, her friends Jaiana, and Jake

The kids had glow sticks too...What fun!

Blowing out the candles

Levi, was feeling much better today and got through the whole party without being sick. Yay!

This is his "You are annoying me with that camera look." Hahaha...

He also looks so much like his birth mother, Reiko in this pictures.

What a silly and beautiful boy!

So... Yep, you guessed it...

For the love of my daughter, I'm strapping on the skates and going for it.

Me doing the "YMCA"

And the "Hokey-Poky"

Poor Tyler (Julie and Travis' daughter) was benched for the entire party due to a hurt knee. She's such a trooper though and hardly let on that it was COMPLETELY breaking her heart to not get to skate.

(I'm so sorry Tyler...We love you so much!)

She did however get to play Air Hockey with Bailey. I'm not sure who won. (Sorry the eyes are scary...bum camera)

Addi and her friends

Natasha, Jaiana's mom came and was such a blessing.
Thank you Natasha soooo very much.

This is TJ. (Julie and Travis' son) He's so funny and every time I see him, he's grown another 4 inches. I think I can use this picture as black mail one day when he's too busy to fix my computer or something. He's one of those super smart teens that can do anything on a computer that we adults can't.

What a goof-ball!

And...
Had to throw this one in of my VERY handsome hubby that is an incredible Daddy to our children!

This year has been a very difficult financial year but God has been so good to us in that even this party, He's paid for. It was such a relief that although works been slow for hubby, it did not effect the joy of our 10 year old and her dream skating party. Again...God You are soooo incredibly good!

Happy Birthday Addison!

You are such a blessing in our lives

and we are so proud of you...

MOM

1 comment:

Megan Hartshorn said...: i have tears in my eyes too... seeing that last photo of Addi and her birth family. the Lord is soo good! we love you all so much and praise the Lord for the work He has done and is doing in your lives. you are such a testimony to His faithfulness and provision and grace.; December 26, 2008 at 5:25 PM

Post a Comment

Our Hope To Adopt Embryos

Hi, my name is Tracy and here is our story,

My husband, Richard, and I have been happily married for 21 years. Early on in our marriage, we were diagnosed with complete male factor infertility. We have been blessed with three beautiful children through separate open adoptions. Bailey, now 17, was born during the time of our lives when my husband and I were grieving the loss of our only pregnancy from donor insemination. She was born when our baby would have been. Her birth was like a healing salve to our hurting hearts. Once we discovered that the Lord could fill our aching arms with such delight through adoption, we began to pray for the Lord to bring us another child.

We hoped and prayed for 6 years when Addison was born. She is now 11. In the time of waiting until the Lord brought our second child into our lives, He did an amazing work upon our heart towards opening our relationship up with Bailey's birthmother. We started out slow and before we knew it, she was a full active part of our family. Today, she is my best friend and we share many of our life experiences together. When Addison came into our lives, her birthparents were already friends that we had known for some time and loved dearly. Keeping the doors of our relationship open throughout her adoption was easy and our hearts today love them with even a greater love than ever before.

Levi is 3 and we just had his birthday party with many friends, our family and his birthmother and her family also. Reiko, his birthmother feels like a daughter to us and her presence in our family is wonderful. She has recently birthed another son named Heidern (pronounced Heiden), that we consider our grandson even though he is Levi's 1/2 brother.

We love all of our birth families very much and have contact with them on a regular basis. We have five birth families for our three children. Keeping everyone up to date with all that goes on in our family is much easier done with updates on our family blog.

For me, the road to motherhood for the past 21 years seemed only possible through domestic adoption. Now that the Lord has opened my eyes to embryo adoption, the longing to birth is again revived and stirred within me. The thought that there might be a way to hold a child of mine without traveling through the pain of another person, is something I look forward to. I love my children so dearly but I also know that their birth parents felt deep sorrow during my greatest time of joy (their birth). That realization is so hard on my heart because of the love I hold for them.

As a profession, I am a labor doula. I watch families birth without sorrow and it is so different than what I've witnessed with the births of my children. I pray that the Lord will allow me to experience this side of motherhood and to have joy without sorrow as our sweet new baby/babies come into our lives. We are praying that the gift of someone's embryos would be this for us.

We are so excited to meet and get to know the family of the embryos and make them a part of our family. We promise to love and cherish the children that come from them and the door to our hearts and home will always be open for you to get to know the children born. Honestly, there is nothing more precious to us than the lives of our children and the hope of the children to come.

We will continue to pray for this dream to come true and place our hope and trust upon the Lord to continue to build our family. We know that in His perfect timing He will bring us our precious little embryos, and bond us to (hopefully) you , a beautiful genetic family.

I have a life verse that has encouraged me throughout our journey.

1 Peter 5:10

But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.

Waiting for the joy set before us,

Richard and Tracy Waring.