Merry Christmas - a little late!

Asher the blurry rock star

Abby and Uncle B under the tree.

Well, like our Christmas cards we are late wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. We had a great time on Christmas eve. It started with worshipping with most of my side of the family at my parents church. We took up many rows with our party of 20. We spent the afternoon at Grandma Ewings with Brad's brother and sister-in-law. We all spent the night and enjoyed a relaxing Christmas morning and afternoon. In the afternoon we spent time with Grandma and Grandpa Shipley. We've been passing around a cold but most of us have been feeling well. The day after Christmas we took a different trail from our usual tradition. We usually get carry out at a ethnic restaurant and sit on our family room floor to eat it. But this year we cashed in some hotel points and gave as a gift to our kids - one night at a local Embassy Suites Hotel to swim, play games and hang out as a family. We had a great time and came back smelling like chlorine. We hope to get our Christmas cards out by the Ethiopian Christmas Day on Jan. 7 2007. Then officially (in Ethiopia that is) we WON'T be late!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Happy Birthday Caleb!

Well, I've missed telling about a very important day in our family. Caleb had a great star wars birthday this month and we enjoyed celebrating his special day. Caleb is a sweet, smart young man that enjoys learning and right now he is absorbing anything he gets his hands on that talks about Star Wars. He recieved his first set of life sabers and the IV episode on DVD. He enjoys playing chess and now backgamon too. Our little boy is growing up and we are sooo proud of him!

Adoption and Christmas!

There is soooooo much adoption in Christmas! I read in my new archeological Bible that Caesar Augustus was adopted by his uncle and of course Jesus had Joseph as his adopted Father and it gives us a great picture of how our heavenly Father wants to adopt us into His Forever Family. Brad delivered a gospel presentation through our adoption experience at our Church's Christmas program for 4 shows and Asher made a guest appearance. I was going to try to describe what he said, but I thought I'd just copy it for you to see. God worked in great ways. It definitely touched hearts and gave people a new perspective on their relationship with God. We were just a vessel to communicate the best message of all.They sang "There are no Orphans of God" song right before he went on. Here is what he said,"My name is Brad and just five months ago today, my wife Chris and I were in the midst of an incredible journey to Africa, to the country of Ethiopia, to adopt a 7-month-old baby boy. Up until that day, we had only a few pictures of him and his sweet little face and we were dying to meet him and welcome him into our family. They called him Mamush, which means “little boy” because they didn’t even know his name. So as you can imagine, we knew very little about him or the circumstances that had left him as an orphan. And it was such a mystery for us as his new parents to picture what his early days must have been like or what sights his little brown eyes had seen. But what we could imagine was life with him in our own home and the smothering love he was about to receive not only from us but from his brother and sisters back in Cincinnati. We had an incredible first meeting in a hotel lobby in Addis Ababa that we’ll never forget and then a joyfully tearful airport reunion as a family of 6 that is one of the highlights of my life. We named him Asher and I would love for you meet him tonight.(Chris brings Asher out for a brief introduction.) Asher means “happy and blessed” which is surely true of his life but actually of ours as well because of the joy that he has brought to our family. I am still a rookie in many ways when it comes to this experience of adoption, but I know enough already to know what an amazing picture it is of God’s love for us. Asher is too young to know how alone he was. He doesn’t know how desperately he needed parents to love him and care for him, to cheer for him, and laugh with him, and protect him, and pray for him. He doesn’t realize how much he needed someone to know him and call him by name. Someday though he will know. But I’m not too young to know how alone I was. You may even feel that way tonight or if not, I bet you can remember too. Spiritually speaking, I was an orphan. And in reality, I was far more lost than Asher. I needed love and protection. I needed someone to cheer for me and delight in me and care for me. I needed someone to know my name. I needed someone to know everything about me - and love me anyway. I needed a Dad. And while Chris and I knew almost nothing about Asher, before we held him for the first time, Our Heavenly Father knows each of us intimately, because he created us. He knows what we need - and what we need is Dad. What we need is family. He has wired us for relationship with Him and each other and He has offered us the chance to become children of God. He is all about big families! As I think about this Christmas, and the first Christmas, I am reminded of the name Emmanuel, which means “God With Us.” I think that is just incredibly profound. God didn’t want us to be alone and he didn’t want us to be orphans without a Father. When we traveled across the World to be with Asher it felt like a trip that took forever. But God traveled even further. He traveled through space and time to be with us – to be God With Us – to welcome us into the family. Now that is the Hope of Christmas. And that’s my Hope for you this Christmas. “Do not be afraid; for behold I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people . . . " Emmanuel, God is With Us and we don’t have to be alone! Merry Christmas!" Every time he practiced it with me I cried. So this Christmas and every one after will be seen through humble and grateful eyes. Thankful that I'm an adopted child of God and my Christmas wish is that all who reads this would be also. Our kids did great as they saw 2 of 4 performances and attended the dress rehearsal. We had lots of late nights and this week we are catching up on rest and getting geared up to celebrate Caleb's 8th birthday on Saturday, Dec. 16th.

Question for bloggers?

Why can't I get paragraphs in my posts? Most if not all the times when I hit the "return" button it won't do anything. So all my posts are one big paragraph. Any help on that one? Thanks!

More partying!

Asher went to town on his cupcake and had lots of fun eating cake and ice cream. He picked his cup cake up in one hand and turned over the whole cup cake and ate it upside down. He ate the cake first and then licked the icing off of his hand. Yes, the picture you see here is him eating his second helping. I forgot how uninterested one year olds are about the gifts - good thing we didn't go crazy buying for him. The simpler the better! Two of our neighbors came over with gifts for him and I wished he could have been a little more excited about their gifts. We gave him something called Boom Whackers. They are plastic tubes that you bang on anything and the play a note. Each are different sizes so they have different notes sounds. Everyone loved this one and we were playing Mary Had a Little Lamb and Jingle Bells by the end of the evening. Since Asher bangs on everything and uses pencils to bang on everything, he caught on quickly to how these work. Well, two more weeks til Caleb's birthday and then we will celebrate Jesus' birthday - what a fun season of life and the year!

Now I am ONE!!!!

After hair cut Before the hair cut

Happy Birthday, Asher!!! He is now a one year old. We got our Christmas tree today and had a great time. Tonight we will have cake and ice cream and he started the day off with a lollipop. He got it at the barber shop and yes, he is sporting a new do! So check out some before and after pics. Our little boy looks so sharp and so different. We keep thinking back to a year ago. We were at our decision point of adoption - domestically or internationally and far away in Boditi, Ethiopia a "mamush" (little boy) was born to a wonderful, loving and selfless mother. We don't know the circumstances that brought us together but we do know the loving God that is control of all and created our family from worlds apart. We are so happy with our little guy, he is soooo happy (even when getting his hair cut), cuddly, very smart, creative and extremely curious! He is another gift from God to our family and we are so HAPPY and BLESSED (the meaning of Asher)! I'll post pictures of the cake eating tomorrow!