Miracles

 When you ask God for miracles, and then you actually SEE them, you want to shout it from the rooftops.

And yet words fail me.

In October we announced the news of our son, you can read here. And HE is a gift! I feel like the luckiest mama in the world that he is ours! Syler Blane, our 6^th child. He evened us out!

You may recall I wrote in that post about my longing for a baby girl. How humorous that we started out for a baby girl and ended up with an 8 year old BOY child!

And we were SO happy with our boy! 

But God… He wasn’t done. He was putting his plans in motion. He knew the ending & he was still writing our story.

We have a baby girl.

Well maybe not so much a baby, though she is in our eyes.

She is 2 years old.

And she is a miracle.

I first laid eyes on her in 2012. So to answer the question, yes she is from Chenzhou.

The day I saw her I knew, she was mine.  I can remember the moment I laid eyes on her. I gasped, I got tears, I dropped to my knees and looked at the nannies in wonder.

Back in 2011 I fell in love with a baby we named Rosebud. I adored that baby girl and would have taken her home with me. But she was not meant to be mine. I have been blessed that I have connected with her family and they are so gracious to let me see her life!

She went home in 2011, shortly after I met her.

So when I walked into the baby play room in 2012, and THIS baby sat there, looking SO much like that baby, it took my breath away.

As I fell to my knees before her to soak her in, the nannies started to laugh and started saying Rosebud (her chinese name of course) because they knew exactly what I was thinking!

I had sworn this trip I was not going to focus on ONE baby as much. I was going to spend equal times with ALL babies.

And then I saw her and well, she was just my baby! She was perfect and smiley and I called Mark and said, I want to bring her home!

And oh did they want to send her home with me.

But of course that was not an option. And at that point while we had tossed around adopting again, it was simply that. Tossed around, but nothing settled.

We spent the next months praying over this baby girl. Praying over our family. Are we supposed to add more? Are we going to be ok if we start an adoption and can't find her file? Are we CRAZY! 

We knew going in we would only find her with a miracle. 

But we also know that God IS a God of miracles. 

And so we trusted in His plan. 

I am not going to lie. It has been a LONG year. My faith felt like it was on a roller coaster of up and down. I wish I could say that I stayed strong, I never complained, I kept a happy attitude and knew that in the end God would give us a miracle in one way or another. 

My friend shared this verse with me, and I wanted SO badly to live that! 

Waiting is not something I have ever been good at though. EVEN now, I can't hardly stand it. We found Syler in October and we wondered, what is God doing? We were SOOO excited to have him as our son! We tried to come to peace with it might be just him. But my heart just kept saying, don't give up.

And God, who is a God of Mercy, gave us our miracle.

There is so much more to her story than I can even put into details. We are still processing through it all. But we do know this, God is good. We are blessed. Not only do we have an amazing son, we have my baby love.

I know it is a gift that I have been given to celebrate her 1st AND 2nd birthdays with her. 

I watched her go from a smily happy baby to a nervous toddler that is scared of strangers. 

I know that she loves puffs, and that was my secret ammunition in July. 

She is a tiny peanut, weighing in at a whopping 22 pounds. She will be 3 in July. 

She was born VERY early and the fact that she is alive IS a miracle in itself. 

She is ornery, and some families who met her have called her Ms Attitude or simply, Trouble. :-) 

Her name is Lin Fei, and just happens that MY middle name is Faye. 

She does not have an English name yet, she is up for the letter M. 

Her report was so detailed, of that I am so thankful. My favorite line is that "she is a beautiful dainty princess." And she IS. 

She is now the baby princess of our family. She is our daughter, never to be an orphan again. She is so loved and cherished and WANTED more than words can say. We have prayed on our knees and continue to do so for this sweet miracle. She is our gift. 

There are moments when I stop and just weep. We started this journey and it was so unknown what would happen. We knew what we wanted to happen, but we just had no idea what God would do. We would look at files and lists and dream and wait. 

My dreams though, they were only THESE kids. Always. 

So now we wait. We will travel SOON though for BOTH kids. We are praying to meet them on March 31st, will you pray with us? 

I really do hope to get back in this blogging thing because I do love to keep track of these things for my kids. Someday I may not remember their stories in detail, but they can read them! 

SEVEN children. It just seems like the perfect number if you ask us!

It's a GIRL!!

Oh yes it is! We are THRILLED to announce that we are going to China for TWO! More to come on the story of our MIRACLE. 

Blizzard 2014!

Couldn't miss posting on the Polar Vortex we had this winter! More snow came down than my kids ever remember. It was CRAZY! It was reported that it was coming and I had my doubts. But they called off our church for Sunday morning as it came down, and kept coming and continued all day. It was FREEZING cold and everything was covered in a winter wonderland! 

 The kids could only go out for short periods of time, but they made good use of it! 

 Pixie LOVES this weather. I am not sure she would ever come in and she runs and plays like crazy! Even though it was deeper than her in some spots, and she had snow hanging off every inch of her, she LOVED it! 

 School was called off for 4 days. We did not leave our house for longer than that. I have never been stuck inside that many days in a row! But honestly, I enjoyed it. The kids were willing to play games, we were lazy and stayed in our pj's most days. We cooked and baked and cooked some more. Makenna made the Texas Roadhouse rolls for us one night, YUM! (obviously these are not the rolls!) 

 Mark even had to be out of town so I was here with the kids alone all week. And still managed to stay sane! It was actually a perfect ending for a crazy December if you ask me. I hope the kids will never forget this week and all that snow!! Because I have not seen that much since I was a little girl, so they may not see it again for a very long time! 

Merry Christmas!

 Christmas Eve we always start the day with breakfast out with Mark's family. We were excited this year that his brother and family made it in from Texas! The kids always get one gift from us on Christmas Eve, new jammies! They were thrilled with footies this year! Ok, they were all thrilled besides ONE. :-) We then head to church for candlelight service. 

 We then head back to our house for family fun! It is always fun to be able to skype with my brother all the way in China! We miss him being with us so it is a great way to still include him in our parties. Not to mention it is his birthday on the 24th so everyone had a chance to sing Happy Birthday to him! 

Last Christmas as a  family of 7 and we can't wait to add MORE! We had our yearly live nativity, this year the older ones wrapped. Can't believe I don't have pictures of it !

It was a great week of celebrating the birth of Jesus, being with family and having fun. 

 But it is hard too. Celebrating while you are in the process of adoption is just tough. On us mama's anyways. The guilt you feel over your child sitting in an orphanage while you have fun, it is a hard balance. We did send the orphanage a Christmas party and were happy to see they at least had a bit of fun. Next year life will be so different and oh so good! 

LOA for Syler!

On 12/24 we officially had in our hand Syler's Letter of Approval (LOA) from China! We waited 62 days to finally hear China say YES he is a Laxton! I don't think we could have asked for a better day for it to come. 

There are many more steps to go, but we know we are heading in the right direction! Hopefully spring travel is still what wil happen. 

I have had so many thoughts lately of our sweet boy. We know that he knows and received our package. They said he is so happy & excited to be with our family and that he shared his candy with his friends. 

Every night I go to bed praying and wondering how he is. He is the last thought on my mind and the first when I wake up. I am constantly looking at the clock to figure out what time it is and what he might be doing. Everything we do I think about how it will be when he is home. 

I hate the waiting. I do not do well with the unknown. I don't like that he is there and I have no idea what is going on with him. If he is sick or scared or worried, what does he do? 

I remind myself often that 6 months ago I was with him and in less than that amount of time I will be with him again! If I can look back at how fast the last 6 months have flown by, it gives me a tiny bit of comfort. This time next year, our family will be complete. At the very most, in 6 months our family will be complete! 

December Fun

 December was busy as always but full of fun! We had our traditional Breakfast with Santa at Eckerts. The older kids have a love/hate relationship with this. They love to eat but think they are just "to cool" of course! But I am pretty sure the silly Elf made it all worth it. He was the best ever! 

 Lots of baking, baking and more baking! 

 And one of our favorites is our traditional family candlelight dinner. We can't wait to have this table even more full next year! At our Thanksgiving candle light dinner the kids draw a siblings name. We secretly shop picking out a gift. And then after dinner they exchange. They LOVE it and I hope someday they will look back on this with fond memories. (and not remember the crazed mama that happens most of the time!!) 

And his name is......

Names are HARD.

Naming your 6^th child is REALLY hard.

ESPECIALLY when you have created a name pattern that you are stuck in.

With Makenna, we just loved the name, that happened to start with M, like Mark. 

Sawyer, we just loved the name. That happened to start with S, like me. 

But then we realized that we were 2 S and 2 M names so when it came to Malaine it felt like she was being left out if we did not use the same letters.

And so it went, we followed the pattern for every child. Though Sage and Mavery got a bit confusing and out of order because Mavery is older than Sage but up for the M letter.

Mark, Shannon, Makenna, Sawyer, Malaine, Sage & Mavery

So we knew this boy of ours was going to be S and would then put our names back in order.

Mark, Shannon, Makenna, Sawyer, Malaine, S name, Mavery & Sage.

But there was a struggle. When I first met our son over a year ago while working at the orphanage, my girls on the team nicknamed him Taylor.

Because they said he looked like Taylor Lautner. He actually kind of does, doesn't he?? :-) 

So that has stuck. We have prayed for Taylor for the last year, we have loved him, and known him as Taylor.

He does not go by this, we just give the kids American names for us to keep track. Chinese names are just not as easy.

Getting past Taylor is difficult, but we knew it was an S name. Saylor was suggested, but I have always loved that for a girl.

We asked for suggestions, we  I looked on every name site out there, we prayed, we tried a few and one has finally settled.

It is still hard. But we hope by sharing with everyone else it will help it settle even more.

We know that many do not like our name choices, and that is ok. Yes, we like unique and different.We know everyone has thoughts and opinions, and that is ok too. You adopt, you name your child. We get to name this one. :-) 

And so our new son & brother will be named.....

 His full name will be Syler Blane ChenLang Laxton

Chinese part still being worked on so that is subject to change.

If you are curious, the ones we were choosing between were:

Shepherd (though I was the only one liking this) 

Shaw

Syler

Someone actually suggested Syler to me on Facebook and now I do not know who, but it went on my list and we all kept going back to that.

Actually Sawyer fought hard for Shaw, because he is studying Shaw in literature and said he’s cool.

But Syler just feels right. We can call him Sy for a nickname. Which has actually been on my list for YEARS. WAY before Duck Dynasty. :-) 

Blane is actually after his 2 uncles, Brett Laxton & Shane. We try to combine family names for all of our kids. 

Today we sent off a package we have been working on. Filled with love. We went to Build a Bear recently to build his bear and the lady asked his name. We told her and when she stuffed those hearts in that bear and said, you all are putting lots of love in for Syler, my eyes filled with tears. 

 To hear someone else say your child's name out loud, it just felt so right.

Syler, our son.  

And yes, we stuffed that bear full of love, a heart for each of us along with our voices. (which may or may not just scare him to death!) I hope Syler will feel all the love we have poured into that package and that it will give him hope. He is wanted, he is chosen and he is SO loved. 

 Mark, Shannon, Makenna, Saywer, Malaine, Syler, Mavery & Sage

Sage is 8!!!

My baby is 8! EIGHT! That sounds SO old, and it feels so old. I remember being 8 so I KNOW it is old! Though she continues to tell me, I will ALWAYS be your baby, even when I am so old! 

Sage is our free spirit child. EASY. Quiet. SO easy... Happy. Really this one is hardly ever in a bad mood. She is never bored, she entertains herself like nothing I have ever seen. She is brilliant and I can say that because I did not pass on any of that to her! Her mind and the way she thinks amaze us. She loves her gymnastics and is thrilled to have mastered the running back handspring recently. THREE in a row! (I hold my breath a LOT!) 

This is such a picture of how Sage rolls. This was on our trip to Florida. She never complains, just gets comfy and settles in for the ride! I often wish I could be more like this child. Letting everything roll off my back, if things don't work out, just try a new path. Just stay happy! 

Happy 8th birthday baby girl! Love you to the moon! 

Orlando Vacation 2013!

 We had a magical vacation in November. We had debated going but so glad we did. I know it will be quite some time before we are able to do anything like this. So thankful for my parents who give generously to help make a vacation like this possible. Weather was perfect! Crowds were not bad. And the kids are the BEST ages to do this. No naps needed! It also helps that my littles are tall enough for almost everything. My kids are thrill seekers for sure! 

 Of course getting a group of 9 plus a dog around can be tiring. But overall it was really a great trip. We visited Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure. Sea World and Magic Kingdom. 

Sporting our Team Spirit for our Chenzhou "family"! 

Universal was amazing with Pixie and if you have a service dog along no worries. Disney was NOT so amazing with Pixie and I am still disappointed. Which is fine. Our family really preferred Universal anyways. 

 We are all big Harry Potter fans so that was a huge draw for us. We LOVED everything about it! Malaine was thrilled when chosen for the wand ceremony. Even Sage has read the first 2 books so seeing it all come alive was so much fun! Shopping at Honey Dukes, trying Butterbeer, eating at the Three Broomsticks, and of course flying through the movie! 

In the end we needed a vacation from our vacation but loved every single minute. Our family is going to change SO much in the next year, it was good to take this time to really enjoy each other and just play! 

Thinking of a brown eyed boy...

I am now officially behind on Makenna, Malaine and Mavery’s birthday posts. I will catch up.

But today I am thinking of a boy.

A boy who is never far from my thoughts.

What will we name him? Where will he sleep? When will we go? Will he be happy to see me? Will he be disappointed when he finds out I am sometimes crabby and get tired and not always as patient as I am with the kids there? Will he go to school? Will he like Chick Filet? Is he going to think our house is crazy? Is he going to give me a hard time about taking showers? (well of course he is, after all he IS a boy!!!)

On and on the questions roll through my mind.

Never doubt, and never fear. When God spoke him into my heart, He breathed a peace into me that erased any worries I had.

But there will always be questions. I am his mother. My kids accuse me all the time of asking to many questions of them.

I just want answers, and they don’t always like that.

With this boy of mine, there are SO many questions and I am not going to get answers. No matter how much I get him to talk.

What did he look like when he was a baby?

What did he look like as a toddler or even as a 5 year old?

I wrestle with that. The earliest picture I will have of my son is at 7 years old.

Today I read an article of a mom sharing some of what her adopted children shared about their past.  It was gut wrenching. What our children survive through, we can’t even fathom.

And as I read, I was reminded of WHY I knew we had to return for him. I have seen firsthand how those kids treat each other.

Survival of the fittest.

Is my son one of the “fittest”?

He is attending school outside the orphanage. This is good! But…

Charlie talked of how when he attended the “normal” school the kids made fun of him.

So, is school good or bad for my son?

Is the orphanage all day better?

It is a HARD place to go to, the unanswered questions can lead to fear.

Not fear of him but certainly fear FOR him. I will admit to that.

So in those moments of fear that want to take hold and paralyze my mama heart that is crying for my son to just be tucked safely in my wings, God whispers.

He is MY son first. I have held him for 8 years of his life. I have led you on a road to meet him, fall in love and now I have matched you together. TRUST ME.

What else can we do?

I trust in the one who has changed a husbands heart time and time again to saying yes we need more children.

I trust in the one who has allowed me to be a part of life inside this orphanage. 

I trust in the one who holds my son closer than I can.

This week we are in Orlando, The Happiest Place on Earth!

We have had this trip planned for well over a year, long before adoption plans. Or knowing when we would get Mavery's service dog! 

This summer we debated going, but felt it was important to have this family time before our lives change again.

Now going KNOWING who our child is, makes things a bit different. We want him going too!

But I will enjoy this time with my 5. Thankful to be able to have this week.

 **If you will, pray that we get our LOA (letter of approval) quickly! The faster it comes, the faster we go!