Meet Miss Maggie

In addition to the normal craziness and life with a newborn, the internet has been off and too slow to do anything when it is on. So, I am a bit delayed in properly introducing you to our newest sweeties.

Sweet Maggie came to us last week when we were called by the Children's Department. This precious girl has already lived a tumultuous life. Her mother is a 15 year old girl with mental disabilities who currently lives in a children's home. The mother had been released from the children's home for a period of time, when she went home and was taken advantage of by a close family member. Maggie was living there with her mother until a social worker saw how the baby was not thriving in that environment. When she first arrived, she was very sweet and mellow. She just laid or sat limply wherever she was placed, which is indicative of the environment in which she was living in lack of stimulation and interaction.

(Her body was covered in little sores and bites. They have almost completely cleared up now.)

Maggie is small, but otherwise healthy. In the week that she has been with us, she has come to life! She is now a happy little talker who jabbers and laughs and loves to sing. Each day, Maggie moves a little more, stretching her boundaries to explore her new world.

 Maggie is almost two months older than Delis, but her body is so tiny. Two adorable little girls!

In praying for Maggie, please pray that we and the Children's Department are able to work together to do what is best for this little girl. Whenever possible, we want our babies to be reunited with their families. Sometimes that is not what is best for the children, and placing them for adoption when they have known families is not an easy task. If adoption is in Maggie's future, pray that we are able to begin working towards that process.

Tuesday's Child - Lizzy

This little girl has come a long way! And this "little" girl is not so little anymore. Lizzy is five years old, and she has two lost teeth to show for it!

The changes in Lizzy are just amazing. She surprises me every day. Just the other day, I looked out the window and this is what I saw.....

 STANDING LIZZY! 

(Lizzy is not upset, yelling here, she is yelling at me to "come!")

We have been so blessed to have a very experienced, qualified physiotherapist who has facilitated some amazing development. He teaches our aunties how to continue Lizzy's therapy at home, and they do a great job of it. And right now we have Auntie Mel with us and she is doing a fabulous job with Lizzy, as well. She works with children with special needs in Canada and has brought that experience with her to help us at HOH for a few months. She spends hours doing therapy with Lizzy and really encourages and motivates the staff, as well. As a result, Lizzy is growing  stronger by leaps and bounds - every day!

Auntie Mel's blog post with Lizzy: CLICK HERE

Look at how Lizzy is gaining core strength and even able to lift herself up from a laying position.

Lizzy loves to help take care of the babies. She likes to be outside. She absolutely loves getting new clothes, especially pretty dresses, and loves to get her hair done. What a little girly-girl! :-)

Julia is her best friend, and Julia cannot wait to get to the baby house each day to see Lizzy. She usually packs her purse with something she has to take for Lizzy to play with. They are quite a pair!

Lizzy is such a bright, smart five year old. She may have some physical disabilities, but she absolutely knows exactly what is going on in the world around her. She is completely aware of her surroundings and understands ev-ry-thing! She is a typical five year old, trapped in a body currently unable to keep up. She cannot express her thoughts in understandable words, but that does not stop her from trying!

Thanks to some very special friends, Sarah (Julia's great friend from FBC Midland) and our {missed every day} Auntie Susan and her family in Michigan, Lizzy has been equipped with an iPod Touch, iPad and a complete communication system that is teaching her how to interact with others using real-word communication!

Please continue to pray for Lizzy's future. Due to various circumstances, she is not able to be freed for adoption at this time. Please pray that if it is the Lord's will that she be adopted, that He will open the doors to do so. If that is not His will, please pray for wisdom and direction for me, discernment in deciding the best plan and future placement for her. Although I would hate to loose Lizzy under any circumstances, she is beginning to know that she is not a baby, yet she is growing up in a baby house. She needs interaction with children her own age, an education, and a life of a child, not a baby. She is too bright to stay in a baby house for the rest of her life! God knows the plans He has for her, and I trust Him to direct us in that. Your prayers for that direction would be greatly appreciated!

Welcome Babies Moses & Maggie

Honestly. This is becoming a God-crazy kinda thing. EVERY time we lose a baby, God brings another in its place.

Today, Joseph's parents have come and God brought us four day old baby Moses! And this on the tail of sweet baby Maggie, who is nine months old and came to us on Wednesday.

Stay tuned to hear their stories.....

Joseph's last day as an "orphan"

Sweet boy Joseph will meet his mommy and daddy tomorrow! 

Our aunties are so wonderful. They have been talking to him, telling him, and preparing him for the big occasion. When I walked into the baby house today, Joseph was sitting in his high chair with the other "big babies." I said, "Joseph, your mommy and daddy are coming to see you tomorrow!!" His face lit up so brightly with the biggest smile ever! He absolutely knew what I was talking about. I said, "Are you ready for your mommy, Joseph?" "Yesh." So sweet.

We are also blessed to have Auntie Mel here for awhile and this little man has stollen a special piece of her heart. In fact, he has moved into her room to help transition him and give him opportunity to sleep in a different place. Every time this little boy has laid down to sleep, either for the night or for a nap, for his entire life, he has had his fellow brothers and sisters all around him. Sleeping in a room alone, without other babies, can be an adjustment for him. Mel also brought him to spend the night and a few days at my house this past weekend to explore him to a new environment. 

These are some of the reasons why I am so glad we are a small home. It makes such a great difference in the individual lives of our babies. We are really blessed to be able to socialize our babies in ways that will help them transition into their forever families. I love that we can give our babies specialized attention in the very unique, specific ways that each and every one of them needs and deserves. Yes, it would be great to be able to do this for twenty, thirty, or forty more babies, but the reality of doing that would be so very difficult. God has given us such a gift in our little home and I wouldn't trade it for the world! We are blessed to know that Joseph is leaving our safe little haven of a home in the best way we could prepare him to do so.


As I sit here tonight thinking about what lies ahead for little Joseph, my heart swells. Does he have any idea what tomorrow holds for him? Does he have the slightest understanding of how amazing it is that he has been given the gift of a forever family? Does he know that his mama and baba have prepared for years to receive him as their own, and that God has picked them specially for him? Will he remember that God brought him into our home when he was just one day old, and that we loved him, held him, played with him, sang and talked to him about Jesus and how much God loves him every day of his life until God brought his mom and dad to him? 


And now, I pray that little Joseph will grow up knowing that he is special, cherished and greatly loved by God and by his parents. I pray that he sleeps peacefully on this, his last night as a child without parents, unknowing of the change that is about to ensue in his little life. God has given him a gift, and I am so thankful and grateful to God for allowing us, the entire family of His Cherished Ones, to be a small part of the beginning of Joseph's life!

Wordless Wednesday

Wow, a week passed by and it's already Wednesday again! I was traveling and not able to post. Sorry! I'll catch up tomorrow. Meanwhile, the beauty in life.....

Wordless Wednesday - "Our new home"

Letters to Julia - Easter 2012

Dear Julia,

You have grown into such a beautiful little girl, no long a baby. I enjoyed watching you celebrate Easter this week. You are just like your Nana....you love celebrating any holiday! You had an absolute blast finding and re-hiding Easter eggs, over and over again. And thug the thrill of the Easter Bunny's visit was pretty exciting, you truly blessed my heart when I heard you tell the boys why we celebrate Easter. You said, "Easter is because God died on the cross and then He was not dead because Jesus is alive."

I love watching you grow, and love watching you learn about Jesus and tell others about Him. On Easter, we celebrate the life of Christ and the life we have in Christ. I pray for the day that you understand and know the power of the resurrection and the gift of eternal life in Christ! You are such a picture of God's grace and redemption already, and I know you will have such a special testimony of your faith one day. I can't wait to see the excitement that your face will radiate when you know Jesus as your Savior. Seeing the beginning stages of that blesses my heart!

I love you, Baby Girl!
~Mommy

Oh, Glorious Day!

Be blessed this beautiful day!

Happy Easter!

More Easter fun! We had a little get-together with some missionary friends tonight, and the kindergarten teacher came out in me.

The cupcake toppers are from Skip to my Lou. I love free printables. I would love to cut out the free printables with a cute little scallop punch. I had one in America, but it got cut from the "bring" stack when I came back home to Kenya because it weighed too much. I am thinking it may make the cut on the my next trip home. Cardstock would also help a bit, but it's not so easy to find here.

I do love when I can do little things that are a taste of Ameria. As much as I LOVE my Kenyan life, it is great to have glimpses of America, especially during holidays.

Friends Easter Party

Julia and I had some friends over for a little Easter party the other day. We got to go all-out American! Julia and I made cupcakes and had a great time doing so!

Thanks to Nana (as usual), we had fun American Easter candy to decorate our cupcakes and to share with out friends.

When are friends came, we dyed Easter eggs, and while we were busy having our Easter treats, the Easter Bunny came and hid eggs! So exciting for little guys!

Julia's favorite part of the day were the friends coming to her house. In her prayers at night, that is what she thanked God for....about twenty times! And yes, we are thankful for great friends to share special days with.

And even though we live far away, we are blessed to have this blog to tie us to our friends and family at home. We may not be sharing special days with all of our friends and family in person, but please know that we appreciate the prayers, support and friendship of our loved ones far away. We now wish you all a very blessed Easter!

Fairy Day

Little Girl loves fairies! She discovered Tinkerbell and all the wonderful Tinkerbell movies just before we left America. A few weeks ago I found these super cute little treats at a specialty shop in Nairobi. Apparently, they are British and everyone around here (in the wazungu world, anyway) but me knows what they are. Kinder Eggs, thin chocolate shell eggs with a little prize inside. I just noticed the Tinkerbelle chocolate eggs and knew there was a little Easter fairy fun in there somewhere.

Sure enough, a Fairy Day was waiting! We marked it on the calendar and counted down the days. Then, Fairy Day, combined with waking up with a dry Pull-Up for the 3rd day in a row (thanks to Mom waking up in the middle of the night and taking a sleeping girl to the potty), resulted in a chocolate fairy egg for (with) breakfast!!

 There was a small little Rosetta fairy inside, but she seemed more impressed by the collection paper with all the fairies' pictures on it.

Then, a morning full of fairy fun bgins! A new Tinkerbell movie in the tent with all the fairy friends watching with her.

And, thanks to Ambrose our groundskeeper, the other fairies were hidden all around the yard.

My camera battery died so we didn't get any pictures of the actual fairy party in the shamba (garden) and our fairy tea party with Ambrose in the yard. Way too cute! But Little Girl had a wonderful time, and it was so good for me to take an hour out of the busy work morning to spend on our fairy adventure. Wonderful memories.