Eighteen months of life, Ugandan visas, and a family picture for our child!

 Mary Taylor turned 18 months yesterday! So hard to believe...I want the time to just stop. I wish I could freeze Henry at "3 and 3 quarters" (as he would say) and Mary Taylor at 18 months. I am enjoying them so much and I want to soak up all their cuteness! They will only be these ages once! Overall, they love each other too! It is a joy to watch them play together and chase each other around the house. I don't think I got along with my siblings this well. I was the oldest of four and I know we fought a lot. Of course, if you caught me at another moment, I might say my kids fight all the time and I can't do it anymore, but if I can have right perspective, they are a lot of fun!

The water table has been the best entertainment with two children. They play together outside for thirty minutes while I make dinner.

 

 Mary Taylor decided she wanted to sleep with Henry for naps. It was so sweet that they wanted to be together, but it did not last long. Henry kept telling me, "Bears is hitting me!" That's one of our nicknames for her. Of course he was loving her being in there with him and she thought it was great not to have to sleep in her own room. After five minutes, I put her to sleep and Henry decided to read books instead of sleep.

 

Then yesterday I thought I should take some pictures of Mary Taylor on her 18 month birthday, but they were being so sweet together that I just went with the moment...put my agenda aside...and I caught some great moments. This is not always easy for me, but I am always glad when I do.

Happy 18 month Birthday Mary Taylor!

Also, yesterday...the Ugandan Embassy started issuing visas again after four months! This is huge! This means that so many families get to come home, some after 17 weeks in Uganda away from their families. Hopefully there will not be too much of a backlog and things will start moving fast. This is sooooo good for us too. Now that our homestudy has been approved by the government, we are eligible to receive a referral of a child and actually get a court date too. Now that the US government is issuing visas, Ugandan children can be adopted! There has been four months of hardly any orphans in Uganda being made into sons and daughters. These children now have hope of a family again. Please pray that these visas will continue to be issued and Uganda stays open for adoptions. We can be confident that God's heart is for orphans to become part of a family!

And today, our social worker at Generations asked us to send a picture of our family so it can be placed above our child's crib that we are placed with. Crazy! We could have a child that knows who we are...So neat! Who knows when this will all happen, but it doesn't seem that far off! This is the picture I sent to her. We really don't have that many up close family pictures of us, so this edited black and white one will have to do until our next door neighbor Brad can take our pictures next weekend. I mentioned to my husband a minute ago, to come home early so maybe we could take our family picture this afternoon...but he did not like that idea...at all! What is it with men and pictures? So, I had to settle for one from last November. Oh...it is not about what we look like, it is about our child knowing that he or she has a family. My husband had to remind me of this, I get a little sidetracked sometimes.