Well, we have been home together as a family with Asher for 4 months - January 14 - my husband's birthday (yeah, that coincidence wasn't lost on us - so cool)! Wow. Time flies... Life has been super busy, with soccer schedules, basketball and the busyness that 4 boys bring, but life has been so, so good!
Our first in-home social worker visit is complete, and went well, with 1 more in-home visit that will come at 1 year, and then we will do a report and mini-photo album each year chronicling our years with Asher, until he is 18 years old.
Our family really feels like it has been a family of 6 forever. Asher is adjusting so well, after a bumpy start. He sleeps each night in his bedroom with the lights off now (just a glow bracelet or mini flashlight - kind of cute really)... just simply asked for us to turn off the lights one night and every night since. He is going to school every day, all day now, which has been a bit harder physically, but emotionally this has helped him feel like he has "fit" in like his brothers, and it is going so well. We moved him into Young 5's from kindergarten, which has been a much better fit for him academically. He works on vocabulary and how to do school in the mornings one-on-one, with some amazing, Godly women, who love on him, like I would at home (so blessed to have them in Asher's life) and then on to young 5's in the afternoon after lunch and recess :) He has come a long way!
He survived his first Halloween - was very frightened at first by all of the scary costumes in our neighborhood, but he got the concept of getting candy very quickly :) He was the cutest shark ever. Our older boys loved seeing Halloween through his eyes this year!
He has had his first Thanksgiving and first Christmas with us, too! We send our boys to a Christian school, so in this Christmas season, it has been fun to see the art work that Asher brings home and listen to him as he explains his drawings about the baby Jesus in the "major", with the "shepbirds" and the "agels" and "wiseamen" and the star. Just 6 months ago, Asher knew nothing of baby Jesus, and now he knows baby Jesus' birth story, and that Jesus was sent for him. Praise the Lord! Our older boys are seeing a fresh perspective, and so are we. Asher also got to experience Santa, bc in our household, Santa brings us Baby Jesus birthday gifts (it's a stretch, I know, don't judge us - ha). We give our boys 3 presents each. If it was good enough for baby Jesus to get 3 gifts, it is good enough for us :) Asher's excitement at getting a full stocking, when he woke up Christmas morning was infectious to us all. Our older boys no longer believe in Santa, so they were all too excited to play along for the benefit of their little brother! Christmas morning was so fun. No family get-togethers or crazy holiday running around, just our new family, hanging out, playing with our new gadgets, gizmos and toys. We took a walk in the new fallen snow and the ice that had come a few days before - peace and God's beauty all around us. It was a perfect thing to do on such a wonderful day!
Asher's language is coming along great. He can totally communicate with us his needs, wants and dislikes - a huge testimony to Asher's desire to communicate in his new language and the fact that being in an immersion setting is the best way to learn a new language. Oh, to be a child and have that sponge-like mind to absorb so much new! He is amazing. God is amazing to have hand-picked this little guy for our family, before we were even born. It is both humbling and also truly amazing to know that each night we kiss his forehead, see him experience something new, hear him laugh with his brothers, say something out of the blue that just cracks us up, see his personality come out more and more each day, and even see him assert himself for what he wants is all a part of a plan that some days during our adoption process we sometimes doubted would ever happen!
Asher and I are doing much better these days... hugs and kisses, when I ask for them or bribe him for, and an occasional "I love you." :) Praise the Lord!! He is calling JJ and I Mommy and Daddy now, instead of Mama and Papa. Truth be told, even though I knew we were called to adopt an older child, I was very nervous about how this plan would affect our family. An older child, after all, does come with more of a past and more memories (both very painful and wonderfully happy) and a certain set of challenges, but God has put all of those fears and thoughts out of my mind with each first we experience together and each little victory forward we have together as a family. Our boys have adjusted well to the "new kid on the block", too. After all, God didn't just call my husband and I to this adoption, He also called our children. We have seen them grow in ways that are sometimes hard to watch but are amazingly beautiful, too. For example, the boys don't waste food on their plates anymore, because they know what Asher had to endure in the 5 years before he came to us. They are very aware of God's calling on their lives and that this calling makes them responsible stewards of this call. They are even more aware what it means to sacrifice, that life isn't always easy in waiting for and walking out God's call, but it is oh so good, if you trust and then follow God's leading. Our dinner discussions and Christmas break discussions were and continue to be so awesome ;) This isn't to say that everything has been smooth sailing. We have 4 boys in this family now. They still fight. They still argue. They still get hurt feelings. They push each other's buttons and can frustrate the heck out of us, but the good far outweighs the bad!!!!!
Asher has gotten to experience Skyzone (an indoor trampoline fun center), had his first Krispy Kreme Doughnut, see his first snow, eaten his first fast food, experience his first school field trip to a local pizza place (which I totally volunteered to go on and was rewarded with pizza - yes), had his first sledding and snowball fun (he can't get enough of the snow), had his first, second and tenth ride on a snowmobile, gotten to swim for the first time over Christmas break at our local, indoor aquatic center, had his first ride on the bus, etc, etc. Whew, he has loved it and welcomed it all with a bit of shyness at first but then with major joy. Asher's joy and laugh are totally inspiring to us :) We all fall in love with him a little more after each of his victories, gluing us all together through him!
God is good all of the time; all of the time God is good! Through the challenges of the wait during the adoption process, to the most difficult and hard first few weeks home, to the numerous firsts, countless laughs and smiles, to the tears, when he gets hurt, and lastly, Asher getting to know his personal savior more and more every day, God is in it ALL... orchestrating a beautiful and amazing life we could have never dreamed of for ourselves! We can't say enough about how listening to God's call on our family has changed us, refined us, redeemed us, and, in short, made us so much more joyful in our lives than we have ever been. That was God's promise to us, and He delivered!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Blessings!
