Glimpses of our boy

Dave, Lifeline Children's Services International Director and our little Brennan 

Two weeks ago a group from our adoption agency, Lifeline Children's Services, went to Ch*na to visit potential partnership orphanages. We were so happy to know that our very own social worker was going to the orphanage in Mao Ming City where our little Brennan currently lives!  She promised to love on him and take some photos for us.  Oh my, did she ever deliver on her promise.  Scott and I have thoroughly enjoyed looking at the pictures and watching the video clips of our sweet little son the past few days.  The videos have especially allowed us to get glimpses into our little guy's personality.  He apparently likes lollipops (seriously, what kid doesn't) and he isn't shy about making that known.  Just take a look at his bold lollipop pursuit...

Brennan and his friend, Melanie

They look like silly little friends to me :)

He also seems to be a bit of a "ladies' man" as he was willing to be held and loved on by our social worker (after he warmed up to her).  At the orphanage, Brennan has a little female friend that he is close to as well, and we got a lot of pictures of the two of them together.

Brennan and our social worker, Mallory

Needless to say, we feel incredibly blessed to receive the treasure of these photos and videos.  We are currently at a point in the process where all we can really do is wait (for up to 3 months) for the Ch*nese officials to approve our dossier.  It is so wonderful to have something like this to help ease the "pain of the wait"!  

***I also want to turn the "spotlight" from us for a moment and onto Lifeline Children's Services.  There will be more official announcements in the near future, but something truly amazing is happening!  In an unprecedented series of events, the Ch*nese government has granted Lifeline exclusive partnership and privilege to work to place 3,000 Chinese orphans into their forever families!  This is an exciting, unheard of, and just overall HUGE responsibility for Lifeline.  If you have ever considered adoption, particularly of a Chinese orphan, I would say to you that your time is at hand.  There are 3,000 boys and girls that are depending on us to be the mama and baba they have never known.  If you are interested in more information, you can go to http://lifelinechild.org/ to find out more about the Ch*na program and the  Ch*nese children who wait.

Mercies of the Morning

I cannot seem to get these verses out of my head today..."Because of the Lord's faithful love we do not perish, for his mercies never end.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness!"  Lamentations 3:22-23

You see, I slept pretty poorly last night.  It wasn't me though.  I rarely ever have trouble sleeping, even when I used to work 3rd shift.  For some reason (that we are hoping isn't an ear infection recurrence) Madelyn was awake from about 12:15 to close to 2am.  This is so very unlike her, but never the less it left me feeling like I had been beaten up by a 14 month old during the night last night.  I was determined not to let it dampen my
sunshine-y day, though.  I knew I could survive on a half pot of coffee until morning nap time :)  We proceeded with breakfast and diaper changes, and then I grabbed my iPhone to quickly glance at emails.  Imagine my surprise to discover an email entitled "Mao Xin Mang's birthday pictures!!!!!!"  (yes, that many exclamation points)

Back in March, before Brennan's birthday, I had contacted the wonderful ladies of http://ladybugsnlove.com/ to see if they could help us with getting a birthday cake to our sweet boy.  They were so gracious and agreed to help make this happen.  It really meant a lot to us because it is difficult to know that your child is having a birthday but you can't be there to celebrate with him.  It is also highly possible that Brennan had seen other children in his orphanage with forever families be sent birthday cakes, but that he had never had been given his own birthday cake.  So that fact made it special as well, we got to be the ones to bestow this "first" to him!

 
So, in the States we have these traditional "first birthday" parties for our kids.  We plan them to be so special and we take lots of pictures and hope the kid will destroy the cake a be covered in icing, right?!?  That is a part of what these pictures symbolize for me.  I am so thankful for these nannies who have given not only Scott and me the treasure of these photos of Brennan's (probable) first real birthday celebration, but who also made Brennan feel so special and treasured on his fourth birthday.  (just a side note, Brennan is wearing an outfit in the photos that we sent to him for his birthday :)

Now as if that email didn't just make my morning and leave me feeling like I was on "cloud 9", it got even better!  Just like the verse says, "His mercies never end".

This afternoon I once again glanced quickly at email and saw a message from our agency social worker entitled "Update".  Hmmmm...what in the world did that mean?  Well, I also had sent a care package back in March, via our agency, and I had enclosed a list of 10 questions to help us better "get to know" Brennan.  The update was answers to our questions!!!

What we learned about him from the answers given is the following:  he likes toy cars (SCORE, I sent two in the care package!!), blocks, balls, riding in a car swing, playing in the sand, and walking on a little balance beam outside.  He also is happy when he's eating snacks and playing outside.  He does not know his colors so he doesn't have a favorite color, and he likes cakes and meat (we'll have to work on the fruits and veggies part).  Brennan is afraid of loud sounds, and he weighs 28 lbs and is 2ft 8.7in tall.  (He is 5 inches shorter than Ben and weighs 5 pounds less than Ben).

The last answer was what sent me back into a weepy mess again, though.  We (nervously) wanted to know what he thought about getting a family, and this was the answer: "when he was told that he would have a daddy and mummy, he was very happy, he took the gifts which from the daddy and mummy, then he shared them with the other children, he was very happy when he was told that he would have siblings, he sees their (family's) photos every day."

Words cannot even really adequately describe how wonderful; what a TREMENDOUS blessing this update is!  I am so excited for he and Ben to be brothers (and most likely similar to being twins in size and development).  It seems their little personalities are already very similar.

I am also so excited that our social worker will be leaving tomorrow to travel to Ch*na to visit some of the orphanages Lifeline Children's Services is going to be partnering with, and she will be visiting Brennan's orphanage in Mao Ming City during her visit.  She is going to be able to see our boy and love on him (and she has promised some more pictures as well!)

I will leave you with my favorite picture from Brennan's birthday celebration; him serving one of his friends a piece of birthday cake.  What a precious, precious child he is!  I am so humbled to be able to say that, Lord willing, he will be (officially) mine and Scott's in a few more months.