Life with Anna

Adding Anna to our family has been a wonderful, God inspired journey.  She is such a blessing and a bright and beautiful ray of sunshine.  She seriously could not be loved anymore had we given birth to her ourselves!  It's really like she has been in our family all along.  What a beautiful gift of God she is to us.

There are no more photos of hopelessness and despair~

THEN &

NOW~

 

She's funny

happy

Smart

Sassy

Inquisitive

Helpful

Bubbly

Inspirational

Nurturing

Delightful

Content

and LOVES her big sister~



Anna's first Christmas with her family

So I am waaaay behind on posting and I really need to do an update since Halloween, BUT for tonight I will just start with some of our Christmas happiness!!

Secrets with Santa



Anna with Mawmaw

Sisters!

Yep, what was I thinking...trying to get Christmas pictures......

Anna's first Christmas parade

Anna holding her Reece's Rainbow Christmas ornament.  A family that had made a donation

to her account before we committed to her, sent this Christmas ornament to us last year,

So last year she was on our tree and this year she was in our arms :)

These girls LOVE Santa...I think he had a good time too :)

Seriously, I don't know why I attempt this EVERY year...it NEVER works out!

NEVER!!!!

EVER!!!

Help Zechariah

Back during our families fundraising days I had several people contact me who wanted to help raise funds to help bring our Anna home.  One of these precious people was a lady named Erin who has an Etsy shop where she sells beautiful handmade Rosaries. She generously offered to donate a percentage of her sales to our adoption fund.  Now that Anna is home she is a Christmas warrior for a little boy named Zechariah who has Down syndrome, is LIVING in a hospital, and is also listed on Reece's Rainbow.  As I mentioned in the post below, the goal for the Christmas warriors are to help raise at least $1,000 toward that child's adoption grant.  Zechariah currently has $694 in his Christmas warrior fund! I am asking you if you could either make a donation straight to Zechariah's adoption grant or visit Erin's Etsy shop and make a purchase of her beautiful items and she will make a donation to Zechariah's grant! If you make a $35 or more donation to RR for Zechariah you will receive a beautiful keepsake ornament with his picture on it and you will also receive a tax deduction!  You can visit Erin's blog or her etsy shop to find out how you can help by donating to an orphan with Down syndrome this holiday season!! Click on Zechariah's photo below to make a tax deductible donation!

Update on our family

   

I realize I have been a slackard, LOL, but life is busy/crazy and I am just being lazy and haven’t blogged in a while. I want to update you on Miss Anna! She is still as sweet as can be, yet she is also a thorn in Ashlyn’s side most days too, LOL. Ashlyn is 12 and also has Down syndrome. She is used to being in her zone and is rather a loner and likes to play by herself. Anna is helping her to come out of this little by little. As soon as Ashlyn gets home from school, Anna instantly becomes her shadow. She is on her heels like stink on poop and it cracks me up! Anna believes that she is Ashlyn’s new mother and she must keep Ashlyn in line….they are such a riot! They are both VERY OCD about some things and that does drive me batty! Like the bathroom door MUST be shut at all times, whether someone is using it or not! If Ashlyn has to use the bathroom, then Anna thinks she must be present on this event too! They roll around in the floor and wrestle and sometimes it does get rough and I have to break it up. Anna also has the job of slapping Ashlyn around every day. I can be sitting in another room and I hear “SLAP” on skin and the next thing ya know you hear Ashlyn whining. Ashlyn WILL NOT SLAP HER BACK! I just don’t get it. The big ol’ 12 year old girl just sits there whining without retaliating…it’s the craziest thing!

All that you read above is the only major thing we are dealing with, with Anna. I have no horror stories (yet, LOL) of an adoption gone bad! She is the sweetest little monkey around and I am absolutely in love with this girl and I feel like she loves all of us as well. She is my little snuggle bug and I am eating it up, because my Ashlyn has suddenly grown up too much to sit around and kiss mama and love mama all the time like we used to and this makes me sad! I am home 4 days a week so while the kids are at school me and Anna get our lovey lovey bonding time. I seriously could eat her with a spoon! She is so stinking sweet and baby like when she is sleepy or going to sleep. She will lay her sweet little head on my shoulder and suck her thumb and I just sit there and soak up all of the love. It’s paradise….SERIOUSLY! I know that a lot of people who read blogs about adoption think that adoptive families only write about the good and not the bad, but not here!! The first paragraph above is about as bad as it gets and if that’s the worst thing she does, well I think she is doing all right!!! I think that our adoption was a match made in heaven and God couldn’t have picked a more perfect child to make our daughter. God is so good. Anna has adjusted to our family so perfectly that it’s almost unreal and unbelievable, but I swear it’s true!

When we were in Ru$sia adopting Anna, the orphanage director told us over and over how afraid she was that we were going to hurt Anna. You see in the eyes of the Rus$ians, they cannot understand why we would even want to adopt her because of her “disease” (Down syndrome). Thankfully on our 3^rd and final trip she realized that we did love Anna and that she was going to be fine being adopted into our family. I was so happy to hear her say this. This lady cried in court telling the judge over and over that she was so afraid to give her consent because she was scared that Anna was going to be hurt or killed. This really got to me. I sat there in court feeling so bad for this lady (and cried right along with her) because she was honestly afraid because she just could not comprehend why we wanted her. We promised her that we would send photos and updates of Anna and we have. I have already sent about 4 sets of photos to her email of our sweet Anna. I want this lady to *know* that Anna is loved and wanted. I want to prove to her that these children are not a *disease* and that they are worthy of being loved and having a family. I do not believe that God put these children on earth to be hidden away in mental institutions. These children are blessings from God, plain and simple. Well, after sending the 4^th set of photos of Anna, the orphanage director finally wrote me back. A wonderful Russian lady that I met in Moscow translated the letter for me. It was beautiful~

Hello Traci, Nastya and all your big family!

We enjoyed to look all of your pictures, she looks so growing up and happy.
We are very glad that our baby is doing so well in new country and with new parents. On the pictures we see that all members of your family take care of Nastya and do things that make her happy. Also it was interesting to see pictures of Halloween celebration and it looked like Nastya liked this celebration also, she looked very puzzled in this pumpkin patch!

Respectfully,

E

There. They finally get it! They enjoyed seeing her with her new family and that she is so happy and loved. She is wanted. This discarded little girl was chosen by her adoptive family because she has Down syndrome. She was abandoned by her birth family because of Down syndrome, BUT chosen by her forever family because she has Down syndrome. What a blessing she is to us. WE are the lucky ones!

No one has ever been adopted out of the mental institution that Anna came from. Ever. That’s why no one at the institution could comprehend why we were there and wanted to know “what we were doing there”. Two days after our court date another person showed up at this same institution to adopt one of Anna’s little friends. Ivan on Reece’s Rainbow has a mama coming for him. She met her sweet boy back in June and is still waiting on a court date to go back and rescue her son. Ivan’s mommy told me that she sat in the director’s office and the director started crying. She poured out her heart saying that she was so afraid of American’s adopting these children with disabilities. (this was before our final trip). But before his mommy left it was pretty obvious that she too had changed the heart of the director towards families wanting to adopt children with Down syndrome. How awesome is this? They are finally seeing that these children are special, loved, and wanted!! We don’t have any sneaky agendas for traveling all the way to Rus$ia to adopt our children. We just love them. Jesus loves them. *He* has laid it upon our hearts to rescue THE LEAST OF THESE. HE sent us half way around the world to seek and find his hidden treasures that are hidden away in mental institutions. *HE* is the reason that so many children on Reece’s Rainbow are finding families!!

Right now Reece’s Rainbow is having a HUGE fundraising event for the children with Down syndrome 5 years old and younger. They have what they call Christmas Warriors where individuals or families pick a child and try to raise at least $1,000 for their grants to give a kick start in the childs adoption funds. If you make a $35 or more donation to a child on the Angel tree at RR you will get a beautiful keepsake ornament with that childs picture on it. And as always, remember that your donation is tax deductible! All donations go to the child of your choice and will help the family who decides to make that child their son or daughter! Maybe for Christmas this year you could make a donation to a child in honor of one or your friends or family members that would help bring a child home to their forever family.

Here is the link! Please visit and look over all of the beautiful children who are desperate for a family of their own and make a donation to help make this possible for them! Thank you all and God bless you!

Grab This!

Down syndrome awareness month!

October is Down syndrome awareness month!!!  I think it's time to move Anna and her new life over to our family blog (that I totally neglected during our adoption)!  I will continue to use this blog for adoption awareness and for fundraising (which I plan to do) for waiting orphans listed on Reece's Rainbow.  Just click on the link below or the link on the right side column labeled "Loving Life", which I think totally sums it up to how Anna is now, and it will take you to our family blog!  I have posted some cute photos of Anna's first trip to the pumpkin patch as we tagged on along on her big sisters field trip!!!

Click on the photo to visit our family blog!!