Taking on a Whole New Meaning!

To sum it up, yes, our life has taken on a whole new meaning as we've grown through this adoption experience! I won't kid anyone, taking in three children in an instant as we have takes extreme patience and compassion, but it emits the greatest rewards at the same time! We're thrilled to have been matched by God to raise our 3 beautiful new additions alongside our other children.

And so far the kids have made super strides in mastering the english language. I'm still amazed at how much they actually now know. Just since we've been home we've reached another dimension in the learning process as they've turned the tables on me. They now tell me both the english word and the spanish word for different things. See, while we were in Colombia, I frequently would seek opportunities throughout the day to recite the word in english and then also give the spanish word. Actually this was a survival MUST because I was the only one who could effectively communicate with the children for the first few days because Rick and Marissa had a very basic knowledge of spanish going into this. Like I said, the kids now teach me both the spanish word and the english word, which I usually smile and then give them praises. Karen was really cute the other day when she initiated the dual meanings. As she was ooooggling over her pretty pop-tart marked with a design of a Barbie princess butterfly, she saw an opportunity to dazzle me with her brilliance. She said, "Mama, in spanish this is a mariposa, and in english this is LUNESTA!" I just rolled with laughter! I could see exactly what she meant because that darn thing did look just like that Lunesta commercial's butterfly! She is just too funny at times!

That one will probably stick in my mind as much as did one of Marissa's funny sayings when she was just entering kindergarten. Nowadays schools issue lists to the stores which display them for parents to equip their children for the entire school year. It's a page-filled list of specific items however I would advocate heavily for future lists to be issued more timely instead of the week before school starts, but what did I know then. Combat shopping was on in full force and there I was among the chaos of the other eager parents making the mad dash at the same time, the same week, wiping out the school supplies aisles making one-stop shopping virtually impossible! Three stores later and I thought I'd fulfilled all the items on my list. Exhausted as I was I did one last check-through on the list to make sure I'd gotten everything. There I was in the middle of Wal-Mart with a tired little shopper named Marissa, making one last check through the list. Aha, only one item not accounted for -- GYM SHOES! So I turned the buggy heading for the shoes and told her, "Come on, we gotta go get GYM SHOES!" She responded with a pathetic little whine and so innocently said, "But Mama, we don't even know anyone named Jim so why would we buy him any shoes -- after all, I'm the one who needs new shoes!!"

Laughter has and will always pull us through some of the stickiest situations and I'm so glad I am blessed with comical children! And as for Luis, he's got the funniest faces and actions alone that bring on the laughter. I gotta get the video features to work on here so you can see what I mean.

May your life be blessed with laughter too!
Genece