THIS MOTLEY CREW

We’re celebrating the end of three long, hard weeks of a liquid diet for Emma Grace. We’re on a soft food diet for a couple of weeks while the tissue continues to heal before we go back to a regular diet. Unfortunately, we’re not celebrating a successful surgery.  Everyday Emma has a huge smile on her face as she walks to the car. She’s such a happy kid. Yesterday I had a huge grin on my face because, hello- two days of school left! However, as she walked to the car, my smiling face was met with a deep stare. The first thing I thought was, “Oh no, did she bomb one of her finals?” As soon as she got in the car, she said: “The hole is open”. I immediately felt a bowling ball in my stomach “What? How do you know?” Tears were streaming down her face. “Because I looked in the mirror.” I pulled over as quickly as I could, made her open her mouth wide, and sure enough, my heart sunk and now tears were streaming down my face. It’s been a long three weeks of frustration, nausea, nosebleeds, anger, and even more frustration. We did everything right…no straws, no utensils, and only liquids. We can’t make sense of it. I know that nothing is wasted in Gods economy, not even 3 weeks of a liquid diet, so He will certainly use all of whatever this […]

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Amelia asked last week “do you know that some people go to an orthodontist just outside of their neighborhood?” I chuckled and said “yes, aren’t they so lucky”. She continued “Why can’t we? Why do we always have to drive so far.” Amelia and Emma had the last of their “unicorn” teeth pulled on Thursday. Their precious dentist named the teeth in the middle of their palate “unicorn” teeth. Cleft kids have all sorts of configurations with their teeth, often missing pertinent ones where the cleft is and a bunch of extra malformed ones that appear in their palate. Calling them “unicorn” teeth always made them feel unique instead of weird, not everyone gets to have unicorn teeth you know, but my cleft girlies do, did! Anyone that has spent more than five minutes with Amelia and Emma know how very different their personalities are. They do have a few shared interests, but for the most part, they are polar opposites. Amelia, our type A, straight A kid, 14 tomorrow, is very much in her teenage angst era and has been for two years now, we see glimpses of her coming out of it and Jay and I silently celebrate when we do. Emma who lives outside of the box, is fiery, has the biggest heart and wears it on her sleeve, so the sixth grade girl drama has her in tears at least once a week, we pray that […]

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I am in awe of our community…our tribe. When we started this adoption we were pretty nervous because we knew financially we couldn’t do it on our own, but we were being obedient and trusted God with every step and He provided…in so many ways. We have been shown so much love and support in the last year and a half, and we still have no words. No words to convey how thankful we are.  Thankful for every prayer that has been said on our behalf.  For the support of all our fundraisers…there were so many!  For each check that showed up in the mail, always at the exact moment we needed it. For the welcome home party at the airport and sign in the yard. For the 8 weeks of meals! For the help with the big girls when we’ve had appointments for Hannah. For the time you have spent encouraging a tired mama, and playing with our energetic girls. For the gifts & snacks. For each phone call and text. And for the time you have spent with us…it all adds up to a super duper grateful family that realizes we are only a family of 6 because of your obedience to Him too. Most days I would say that the last 11 weeks have flown by, other days it feels like it’s crawling by…but either way, I can’t believe how Hannah has grown, how deep our love […]

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