Amaris' 3rd Birthday, First Birthday Home!

What a joy to celebrate Amaris Nanette's 3rd birthday with her!

For two years she spent her life in an orphanage.
She was loved there, 

but it's much different than the love a family can give. 

I bet they have no idea what a spit fire this girl really is. 

I took the girls for our birthday frozen yogurt. 

We each were entitled to a FREE 12 oz. 

Can you see their bowls? They ate it all. 

I think Amaris left 3 bites. 

Amaris was born on my 40th birthday thousands of miles away...

But God brought us together in a very miraculous way. 

Gabriella loves having a little sister to play with all day, 

and we are currently waiting to be matched with 

two more Chinese sisters.

In the background is their new trampoline. 

It counts and plays music as they jump. 

They also got a tunnel to crawl through that is a caterpillar. 

I think we only gave Amaris a couple presents each day.... 

for like a week.

She was in Heaven!

  

Counting, sorting, and matching airplanes. Oooh la la!

The big brothers stopped in... to get their taxes done...

but let's pretend for a moment it was to see their spoiled sisters.  

Gu Gu Kai and Gu Gu Jordan

Amaris grabbed her crown from jie jie Tyanna to put on. 

The girls bounced for Gu Gu...

  

Mama was able to get a photo with Amaris and Baba 

before Amaris fluttered away again. 

She is ALWAYS on the move!

Earlier in the day, the girls were counting their new ladybugs 

and putting them in their sorting tray.

Lesson 1 for Mama... Amaris wins!

First, I will say that I wish my camera photos were better 

because this really was a funny day. 

While Gabriella was homeschooling at the little table this morning, 

I gave Amaris her "homework". 

Amaris' "homework": 

String ALL the RED beads. When you are done, let me know. 

Shouldn't be too hard... In my mind, I am thinking that 

if she doesn't organize them by shape first, 

she SHOULD be done in less than 3 minutes. 

I forgot ONE thing though. 

Amaris does things her OWN way. 

(I can totally see my mom smiling down from Heaven right now)...

My camera couldn't capture all of the things Amaris did 

with just 6 red beads to go... but, here's a glimpse. 

Amaris stood on the media chair you see in the background 

(on the arm rest)... until she lost her balance. 

She went to grab her stroller and microphone 

to race into the other room... The forbidden room. 

The dog chased her. 

Amaris returned after being asked 

what she was supposed to be doing. 

She got pretty close to her red beads. See the photo below...

Do you see the pile of beads in the top right corner of the photo?

She has already strung the majority of the beads. 

BUT, instead of stringing those last 6 beads, 

she decided to hang off her trampoline 

and pull her legs up and down as though 

she were at her Gymnastics class on the bar. 

Amaris decided to return to the beads... well, with a little prodding. 

She looks at them both in front of her and behind her. 

She contemplates for a mili-second what she should do. 

Lunch is about to be served and 

it has been over an hour of sheer delight... uh, for her that is!

Getting her "homework" finished 

does not appear to be on her agenda anytime soon. 

Despite the fact that she LOVES "homework".

She even throws a fit if I don't give her "homework".

She leaves the stroller because she got a glimpse of her princess ball. 

She proceeds to put the ball behind her back and throw it 

as far as she can. 

Gabriella giggles from the table. 

Amaris has something to work with now. 

She has got the attention of her jie jie. 

And, Amaris LOVES attention. 

After she throws the ball a couple times, 

I look to change her attention back to the beads. 

I march her little Chinese toushie back to her "homework" 

and show her that she only has SIX MORE RED BEADS. 

Gabriella is now enjoying her lunch... 

Amaris notices, but is not concerned in the least bit. 

Instead, she encourages the dog to eat her lunch... the dog's lunch!

   

I share with her that Gabriella and I are now both 

enjoying our yummy lunch,

that her lunch is on the counter, 

and that she can come join us when she is done with her "homework." 

She crawls through these two chairs and opens and closes a container of diaper wipes. 

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE ACTIVITIES, 

she has NEVER DONE BEFORE...

I give. What is so special about today?

She sees the dog carry her (the dog's) special "bear" stuffed animal.

She chases the dog and grabs "bear" from her and starts to run. 

The dog catches her and they begin to play tug of war. 

Sigh.... my camera battery was low, so I missed this funny scene. 

But, I am sure you can see this little monkey in action. 

It truly wore her out. But, she was happy. 

After her nap, we talked again about her "homework" and 

what needed to be done. 

Something we had done perhaps 20 times in the 2 hours 

before nap time. 

I asked her to show me the red beads and to finish stringing them. 

She proudly held them up. She did it! It took her mere seconds.  

She had the biggest smile on her face.  

We counted her beads together. 

I could tell she was having lots of fun. She won!

How could you not love a monkey like this?

And, when Baba came home today, he asked, 

"So, what did you do all day?"

Her First 3 Birthdays

Celebrating her birth... 

Amaris was born with 4 very serious heart conditions: 

This is called: Tetrology of Fallot or TOF.

It would have been nearly impossible for her birth mama 

to keep her and for Amaris to have any quality of life. 

So she did what none of us would ever want to do... 

she secretly took her child to the small hospital clinic 

in hopes that someone would find her 

and get her the medical attention 

she knew her daughter would need. 

Out of THIS love from her China Birth Mama, our love was birthed. 

Today Amaris celebrated her 3rd birthday on MY birthday.  

Yes, even God loves special days!

Half the Sky Program

Half the Sky works in the MaoNan Orphanage in 

MaoNan, Guangdong, China. 

These are the earliest photos we were given of Amaris, 

abandoned at 1 month... if I remember right. 

From everything we can tell, 

she was greatly loved and well taken care of. 

She had a memory book about a 1/2 inch thick 

that documented many things for us. 

It was translated by our guide while we were there in China. 

I will post this in a later post. 

 

http://www.28daysofhearts.blogspot.com/

Friday, February 1, 2013

Day 1 -

| 4 comments

The Lord gave me a vision of two shoulder-length, dark haired, tan-skinned girls… one that looked about waist height and perhaps 5 years old, the other about 2 and standing mid-thigh. My husband and I waited 16 years before we would ever meet the first little girl we would name Gabriella. And another 2 years before we would know who the littlest one was. We completed our first adoption with Gabriella in July 2010.

In December 2010, as I prayed, I felt the Lord tell me that we would have a “heart baby” and we would get her through Wasatch. We had already started our paperwork though another agency though, so I couldn’t figure out how all of this would come to be. And, no matter what I did, I couldn’t find an agency called Wasatch on the internet. So, I waited for further direction from the Lord.

Fast forward to February 2011, Jason and I found a little girl named Giselle that we thought we could bring home as our third daughter. I had found her through Rainbow Kids, and, ironically, she was with Wasatch. I ended up getting those much needed contacts for Wasatch. After literally a hundred emails back and forth with Kathy Junk and our neurologist, we felt comfortable to lock Giselle’s file. We knew that she was not our promised baby because I had genuinely believed that something absolutely miraculous would happen when I found her. And, nothing of the sort happened with this little girl. She was cute… and, we would have been happy to call her our daughter. I had looked at well over 1,500 perhaps 2,000 photos since the summer of 2009, but very few girls had caught my heart, but, I was intrigued with this little girl. That night, after locking her file, I began to pray and I heard the Lord speak very clearly to my heart, “You can have Giselle, but your blessing is in June.” These words repeated in my heart and mind over and over and over again until I finally said I would stop this adoption and trust Him. The next morning, utterly crushed, I sent an email explaining what had transpired the night before and later followed it up with a phone call. Giselle would never become our daughter.

I shared my story with my closest adopting girlfriends and asked them to pray with me, that I would know what my blessing was in June. I wasn’t 100% sure it was our daughter we have longed for, for so many years, but I KNEW that I KNEW that I KNEW, it was my blessing.

One evening in mid-June, I felt compelled to leave my scrapbooking in the kitchen and meander upstairs. I gave my hubby a little kiss on his cheek as he worked at his computer… but, just as I did, a strange sense came over me to look at my computer. As I did, at that VERY SECOND, I saw Martha@rainbowkids.com pop up. I clicked on it and saw the name “Nanette”. My entire body, literally from the top of my head to the tips of my toes began to feel like a bolt of energy was rushing through my blood… up and down… up and down. The palms of my hands were sweating profusely. I said with great excitement to my husband, “Honey… this is her, this is her!” At this point, I still had ONLY seen the name “Nanette.”

I clicked on the name and to our surprise, our eyes saw one of the most beautiful babies we had seen in the last 2 years searching for our second little princess. She WAS from Wasatch and she WAS a “heart baby.” But, if that wasn’t enough, she was born on my 40^th birthday. I always felt that we would know who our daughter was by her name. So, I looked up the name “Nanette”… and again, to our surprise, it meant “Grace and favor”… these were the two words I asked the Lord to give us as we walked through this next adoption journey. Her Chinese sur name also meant “Grace and favor”… the Lord certainly has given us His grace and favor.

We named this little princess Amaris Nanette, which means: “God has promised”, “Grace and favor.” We waited 18 years to hold Amaris in our arms. She was greatly loved in her orphanage and by her ayi that we affectionately refer to as her “China Mama.”

Amaris was abandoned 1 month after birth. When we went to see her finding spot, the Lord blessed us with the opportunity to meet the woman that found her lying in a little box, with a blue tint to her skin, left outside a rural, single-room clinic.

Amaris was diagnosed with Tetralogy of Fallot… known better as TOF or 4 things wrong with the heart. Shortly after her first birthday, her orphanage referred her for surgery and she reportedly has had one of the best surgeries our cardiologist at home has ever seen from China.

We held Amaris in our arms 13 months after her surgery. We arrived home on a Saturday and our cardiologist saw her that Monday… his day off. She had an echo done and I was told to return each year in July for follow-up echos.

The cardiologist said she can do whatever she wants that I just need to follow her lead.

The only time we think of her heart surgery now is when her older sister pushes her in the chest. Generally, I gasp for air and then sit down and give our little one a mini lecture.

We have an exceptionally smart, fun, loving, outgoing, passionate and spunky little girl that currently knows no boundaries or limitations. She learned to ride a two-wheeled bike (with training wheels) by watching her sister.

We are blessed beyond measure and feel that Luke 4:19 (NIV) reminds us of 2011… “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

The Lord says in Jeremiah 33:3, “Call to me and I will answer you.” I really feel that the Lord significantly directed our path to this precious little princess.

To learn more about our journey to Amaris, you can read in her personal blog: SweetPrincessAmaris.blogspot.com

Mama to many…

2 biological children

2 nephews

2 adopted Chinese princesses

And currently LID since September 2012 for 2 specific princesses whom we have yet to be matched with 

Found: Her Baby Photo!

As I downloaded some 2,000 photos from my phone since it's purchase in December (yeah... 8 weeks ago)... I came across some photos of Amaris when she was in the orphanage in MaoNan. Photos I had never seen before.

But, before I show you those... let me just say, there is no way I really took that many photos in 8 weeks... unless, it was solely user error... holding down the button as it snapped far too many photos of the same pose. Nonetheless, I will be deleting oodles of them in the coming weeks.

Anyway, the surprise gift of these "new" photos of Amaris... was fun to see. They were actually on my computer, so the orphanage must have given them to me and I just didn't see them.

It's been a busy day as we watched the Super Bowl with our good friends Steve and Lorianne and their sweet daughter Anna. The girls celebrated Gabriella's 6th birthday again... the never ending birthday. Tomorrow, I am going to have to break the news to Gabriella that she will have to wait another year for a birthday present. She is probably gonna be bummed about that!

I've seen the next two photos... I think... but, I am not sure I ever posted them. 

They look familiar though. 

I haven't ever seen this photo of Amaris. Love her hair!

I think she will love her outfit too as she gets older!

I am amazed at how "empty" these children and their looks are before they are adopted. 

It takes just minutes, hours or even a few days to bring out a smile in most of these children. 

And, by the time they are home, two weeks after they enter your arms, 

it is like you have been together forever. 

Psalm 147:3

"He heals the broken hearted and bandages up their wounds."

I