Our first trip to Candlewood Lake

We have been blessed with some very dear friends who own a vacation home on Candlewood Lake, about an hour north of us. We got away last weekend for Father's Day and our 12th anniversary! Can you believe it has been twelve years and four kids later?

We went up with some friends of ours from seminary. They live near us and it was so nice since our kids get along so well.
Evan got his first taste of lake swimming. He was a little unsure at first, but soon was smiling and laughing.




There is a wonderful playground where the kids enjoyed swinging and climbing. Evan's favorite thing to do was play in the pebbles.


Ellyn wants to do the "baby thing" so her friend Jonathan gives her a push







Daddy, Kayla and Ethan had fun in the deep area standing and jumping off of Daddy's shoulders.

Evan took to the sand and had a great time playing with the sand and water. They say it is good therapy to play in the sand!

We are so thankful to the Lord for the family He has given us.
"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows"
James 1:17

Three months since Gotcha Day

Today it has officially been three months since Evan has been in our arms. In some ways it feels just like yesterday, in others it seems like forever. In the last few weeks, Evan has definitely settled into our family. He is full of smiles, laughter and joy. He loves to mimic funny faces that his daddy or the kids make. His most recent face, is raising his eyebrows. I wish I could catch it for you because it is so cute.
He is babbling up a storm. Kayla has commented several times, that he will not need speech intervention. He repeats a lot. His favorite words are apple(app-uh), diaper(biper), meow(oow), doggie(ruff-ruff), mom, or mamma, daddy, Nannie, Poppy, Ouch. . . with more new ones each day. His favorite things to do are play outside, ride his bike, and take a bath. He loves to snuggle too!


My favorite memory from the last month is this, I was typing on the computer one day. He was in the Ergo. He grabbed my face, turned it toward him, kissed me on the lips and signed, "I love you". I guess if you want to get your mommy's attention, that is the way to do it. He melted my heart.

We are so thankful to God for placing the desire in our hearts to adopt so many years ago. Now that we are through the process, we thank Him for allowing us to parent this special boy.

As for the rest of the family, the kids are rapping up a full school year. We are talking about all the fun things we are going to do together this summer. The weather has been beautiful so we head outside for walking, biking, front yard kick ball and such. We have even had two wonderful family picnics with cousins for birthday celebrations and Memorial day!

God is so good! His faithful love endures forever!




A flower from my garden! Isn't it beautiful!

Poem

This poem was written by my friend, Joni Gainer, who travelled with us to Vietnam. It expresses eloquently the emotions that flooded our hearts as we picked up our sons.

March 30, 2008 Quiet time reflections on Binh Duong Orphanage


They quietly watch the strangers
tour their familiar halls.
They listen to foreign chatter
as it echoes between the walls.

The lucky one, in the midst of them,
tentative and shy.
Hoping, yet grieving,
as a tear slips from his eye.

This lucky one has a home now
he’ll be going to,
But the others will stay behind
when the day is through.

No matter how old they are
the hope just never dies,
“Please, let it be me soon”,
lingers in their eyes.

How can I forget them
when this one’s in my arms?
How could I ignore them,
to never know their charms?

Lord show me what you’d have me do;
fill me with your will.
You are the God who does provide;
your purpose you fulfill.

You created my inmost being
and filled me with a vision.
Lord show the path and give me strength;
Lord use me in your mission.

Their longing eyes, their hungry hearts
are calling out to me.
I’m waiting, Lord, for answers
In your will...I long to be...
In your will, Lord...help me see.

Parks and plays

We have been having beautiful weather these past few weeks in Ohio. Spring has Sprung!
Evan is learning all about playing at the park. He loves the swing and climbing. Here he is with his friend Jonathan!











We needed pictures for our first post placement home visit. Don't they all look happy! The kids truly are loving having a little one around. I am appreciating all of their help!











Because Evan got a turn in the baby swing, Ellyn wanted one too! She is still struggling to give up that "baby of the family" position.












Can you tell he loves it! It was so cute to hear him laugh and laugh his first time in the swing!













Kayla, Ethan, and Ellyn were in a musical at church this weekend. It was called "Fish Tales" !
Kayla performed a song in the signing choir. It is so neat to hear the kids singing songs about Jesus and His wonderful deeds!


Oh, yesterday marked two months with Evan. God is so good and we are so blessed to be the parents of a wonderful, sweet boy!

Smiles and Such

Life with four children who are home most of the time(homeschooled) is very Full! We are all delighting in the little boy who has become very much a part of our family! Evan is full of smiles and laughter. He still prefers mom, but is warming up to his other siblings. Dad even kept him last night while mom had some much needed woman to woman talk time.































Evan's favorite food is small pieces of cut up apple. This week I put two bags of them in the grocery cart and he kept saying over and over, "Ma, Ma". Yes, this is what he calls apples. I say "apple" and he says, "Ma, Ma". Oh well. It is cute and he loves them. This is a picture after he just finished a tray full of them.



































Sorry for the sideways pics. Anyway, someone gave us this bathrobe and I thought he looked so cute. Kind of reminds me of "Rocky". Yes I am an 80's child!





































When his sister saw the bathrobe, she wanted to get a bathrobe picture with Evan too.















Evan found his blanket from the orphanage in the laundry and pulled it all around the house one day. He also pulled his homecoming balloons with it. It is neat to see how he loves the blanket that he knows from his first "home"!

First haircut

On Saturday, Evan had his first haircut by mommy. The deal in our family is mommy cuts everyones hair so mommy can afford to get her hair cut! It works out nicely, most of the time. I have learned that Evan enjoys videos that have children singing. So with our favorite "Donut Man"(if you don't know who the Donut man is you might want to check it out), we set out for our first haircut. I think it was the easiest first haircut of all the kids. Granted, he has definatly had haircuts before so may know the routine. Enough said, here are some pics from the event.

Feels like a dream

Isn't it amazing how quickly a trip or vacation, when you're back into the daily grind, can feel like a dream? Now that we've been back from Vietnam for just over two weeks, it does feel like a dream... at least until I get home from work [Eric writing] and see that cute, little, asian pair of eyes greeting me at the door!!! Then it all comes back -- we really did go and we really did bring home a son. It wasn't a dream.

I must thank again all of you who helped make this DREAM COME TRUE. I must say that over two years ago when we decided to finally fill out the adoption application with HOLT it seemed like a mountain that would be impossible to climb. We we didn't even know then that God had a job change and relocation in mind for us all at the same time! (if we would have known that we probably wouldn't have started - thank goodness God doesn't let us in on the future, otherwise we wouldn't do that things we have been asked to do).

Thank you to all who have prayed and paid - paid for part of the adoption costs. Its amazing that out of the roughly $25,000 of adoption expenses, we have only $2,000 to go - and get this, we will be receiving a $2,000 grant from the State when Evan's adoption is finalized. Get that! Totally debt free - a family of 5 (prior to evan), living on one "average" income, getting through a $25K process without owing a penny! THAT CAN ONLY BE GOD... working through gracious people like you. With MUCH THANKS... Evan and his parents and siblings:)

Dancing baby after one month being a Crawford

Today is a day of celebration for our family. Evan has been ours for one month. We rejoice in all God's faithful hand that has brought us this far. We hope you enjoy this video of him dancing.

You've come so far baby!

Today we celebrate a whole month of Evan being home. We are amazed by God's incredible faithfulness which has brought us to this point. It is awesome for us to think that a month ago we took Evan in our arms for the first time. Now he is quite content being in our family. I think my favorite "change" that has taken place over the last month is seeing him learn to trust us. A month ago I started the routine of holding and singing to him before he went to sleep. He would push away and cry then finally give in. Now, I say time for "Nigh, Night" and sit down on the bed. He curls up in my arms, puts his two fingers in his mouth and snuggles while I sing and pray over him. I praise the Lord for this, realizing that it is His amazing healing hand and knowing that it is in answer to so many prayers! We hope all of you who have prayed so faithfully for us and our family will rejoice today with us.

Signing time

Since we have had Evan, he has learned many new signs. We have taught all of our kids sign so they can communicate before they talk. He has learned the signs for shoes, mommy, daddy, ball(his favorite sign), cookie, all done, please, more, and milk! He is like a little sponge soaking up all of the learning. Here are a few pics of him signing. It may be hard to tell what he is doing, but it is much better in living color. He is signing ball in one picture and I love you in the other by crossing his arms and rocking back and forth. The other pic is just having fun with mom.

We are so blessed of the Lord to be parenting such a sweet little boy!

Boys and bath time

The kids have all been taking turns taking baths with Evan, in their swimsuits. They are all having a blast bathing together. It is so fun to watch Evan learn to splash, blow bubbles, and just have fun in the tub. We have bath pictures with all of our kids and funny hair styles. As you can see Evan has joined the funny hair club. He and Ethan show off their mohawks!

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Do the baby workout!

Okay so you've all seen Father of the Bride 2 where Frank does a workout with the two pregnant mommies. I happened to watch that movie during my labor with child #3. Last night Evan was in the Ergo and he and I were doing the baby workout. He was laughing hysterically! It was so much fun.

I know I look dorky, but it sure was fun. We were great entertainment for the rest of the family!

Settling in

Evan in his exersaucer

Evan loves being outside on his bike! He is learning that he joined an outside family.

finally all together at dinner, minus mom who is taking the pic!

Now that we are home, we are throughly enjoying being a family of six. Evan is getting to know his brother and sister. They love to hold and play with him. I am getting the distinct impression that he loves being part of a family. We had a wonderful time playing outside yesterday. It was warm enough, by Ohio standards, to be outside. Evan loved being on the tricycle and pushing himself around with his feet. First he figured out how to go forward, then backward.

We are FAMILY

Psalm 16:6 "The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. I will praise the Lord. . ." I have such joy in my heart and such a peace for all that the Lord has given to us. I am truly a blessed mother of Four wonderful children, each uniquely made by God!

Granma Crawford welcomes grandbaby number 12 to the family! #13 will arrive this fall!

The sisters are so thankful to be back together after 3 long weeks apart!

The "Boys" of the family enjoy a moment together playing on the floor!

It is with great joy that I write to let you know that we are finally home and all doing well, except for a little jet lag, which is to be expected. A couple of weeks ago another adoptive mom wrote about the joys of being home and finally all being together as a FAMILY. It was such a joy to see Ethan and Ellyn's excitement over having Evan home. He is not going to have any problems learning his new name because his siblings call out to him over and over and over!

My heart is full of gratitude to the Lord for leading us to our son Evan. He is weaving our hearts all together into a family that I pray will honor and glorify Him.

WERE COMING HOME

We applied and picked up our son's visa today. The Lord opened up seats for us to come home on Tuesday instead of thursday. We have tickets in hand. The bags are 90% packed! We are going out to our favorite restaurant with our dear friends the Gainers, who are also going home tommorow! Please pray for a smooth flight with no unforseen layovers. Please pray for us all to have the strength to make it home in one piece! Please pray the Evan will sleep for at least some of the time. We know our God will answer! We'll be home on Wednesday!
Yahooooooooo!

Slide Show

Blazing new trails

This is a VIDEO of Eric taking motobike taxi - much more fun than a regular car taxi! For those of you who LIKE to drive in busy cities, bumper to bumper on the high ways, you've never seen anything like this-- and what you see is NOT even rush hour traffic!

Comfort Food

While Eric is out at the National History Museum, Kayla and I are here dreaming about the food we will eat when we get home. We played a little game to see who could come up with the best meal when we get home. So, you vote. Kim's meal: A wonderful salad with all the fixings(have not been able to eat greens in VN due to fear of water diseases), a pork roast, warm italian bread with butter, an oven baked sweet potato with brown sugar, and for dessert our favorite chocolate raspberry cake with vanilla ice cream!!!!!! Now for Kayla's: Pancakes smoothered with warm, real maple syrup and blueberry sauce, cheesy eggs and bacon, and one delicious lemon merrange(sp?) pie made by my dear Grandma Bell because no one makes it like her!!!!!!!
So who wins! Can you tell we are ready to come home?

Kindred Spirits, cute pics, and funny story:)

This is the Gainer Family... who came the same day as us, and hopefully we'll all be leaving the same day this next week! It has been a blessing to be in a totally different country with another family - but not just any family, but a family who has some much in common with ours; homeschool, faith, values, love for children (they've got a total of six now!), books, etc... Kayla has definitely looked up to nathan their 15 year old - he's been an older brother to her and has helped her adjust to very different foods and experiences. We've had all of our appointments togather. It wasn't planned... but must have known we needed each other... and our two Vietnamese sons needed each other too.

Now for some cute pics of Evan --then to the funny story of the day!

I think Evan is excited... what do you think? Really - kim has been teaching him to make these funny kind of faces... and it worked.

Evan wasn't a THUMB SUCKER... he was a two finger sucker - the first pic is from the very first day we met evan.

Here's the most recent picture of "two finger sucking" - but look in whose mouth the fingers lie! (i guess that's a good sign of bonding... I know that for myself, I only put my fingers in the mouths of people I only have the most complete trust:) )

Ok, this pictue wins the prize for the most stuff fit onto one bicycle! (yes, there is a bike under there... somewhere) This was actually in a museum, and all those things are fishing baskets/traps.

Ok, here's the funny story. We went to lunch today before visiting a museum... but it was close to 2pm, totally non lunch hour. We were in the area of the museum and just assumed we would be ablt to find somewhere to eat pretty easily... WRONG... either because the museum is in a part of town where there aren't many eating establishments, or because it was 2pm and they all shut down still the dinner rush, I don't know. what i do know is that there wasn't much around, so we had to do some walking. the first thing that looked like it would have eatable stuff, we walked into it sat down and through cave man style sign language signaled our intense desire to eat before starving to death. Kim went for the standard PHO (traditional VN soup), Kayla had lost her appetite just by the very different eating environment (she was hoping for a KFC or starbucks kind of place); But I was full of advernture and stuck to my guns - If I'm in Vietnam, i'm going to eat like the Vietnamese! I asked the lady to bring me something with rice and meat. I'm not sure exactly what we said, what she heard and vise versa... because by the end of the meal, we had two cups of strong VN coffee, three cups of tea, three main dishes, a bunch of side dishes, dessert, and a free round of Jasmine tea (compliments because of the National WOMEN'S day here in VN). By the way, the total bill came to only 60,000 VND (only $3.50 ) - the cheapest meal to date! I gave the young guy an extra $1.25 (20,000VND) and he tried to refuse it, but I insisted. So here's the funny part... here's my meal below... take a guess what it is:

YES, there's rice in there! Da! Yes, there's meat too... but do you know what kind? Well, that was the problem, I didn't. I thought I asked for something with beef in it, but who knows what she heard. I finally inquired, the curiosity was killing the cat. One of the ladies did speak a little english. I asked if there was chicken in it, because I thought for sure there was and ate all the stuff that looked and tasted like chicken. But when asked she said pretty plainly that there was not chicken... hmmm; I started to worry. How about beef... YES, there's beef. ok, i'm feeling a little better. THEN she said, "Feck hert" & she pointed to her heart....what? I didn't understand. She said it again, and then my wife said, "do you mean FOX HEART?" -- Yes, fox heart. Ok, my stomach just went to my heart, and something else's heart some how got into my stomach... all kim could do was laugh, saying my adventureous spirit finally got the bet of me!

Here's kayla enjoying some chocolate dessert later in the day.

Ok, for you who didn't believe the SNAKE WINE story from last week, here is the actual thing... A king cobra in a bottle - but this time he's got a scorpin! You won't see that in America!

Medical exam and a weeks reflection

Evan has such emotional eyes... the asian eyes with dark colors add so many emotions and added expressions... sad is much sader and happy is much more happy. I think one of the most beautiful things in Vietnam are the facial lines of the people - and evan's face is a wonderful glimpse of the beauty we see all around us each day. It is one of the things I will miss when we come back to the states.


Here's what they call DRAGON FRUIT... bright, dark pink with "tintickles" on the outside, but much like a Kewi on the inside, but much more mild and consistent... we've had them most mornings here:)

Evan is definitely warming up to Eric... here he sits on my lap and enjoys some lunch time with daddy.
We are a family who LOVE back rubs... Evan fits into the family just fine. Here is kim giving him a full body message. One of the areas of healing that many orphans go through is called "attaching and bonding" - emotionally clinging to a caregiver - which does not happen when orphaned at an early age. One way to do that is through meaningful touch. Also, smells can be used to build bonding in a family. We all use a certian kind of lotion each day... and kims uses here with Evan. BTW, for other adopting families, if you haven't read any of Gregory Keck's books, they are incredibly helpful. "Parenting the Hurt Child" is a very basis book about the needs of orphans who are placed in adoptive families.

Kayla and Evan enjoying some giggle time in bed:)

We had our medical exam for Evan's visa today. He is doing very well, despite a little constipation. So for our first doctor's appointment together, Evan weighs in at 17.6 lbs and 29 1/2 inches tall. He is tiny, but healthy. We are working on beefing him up. So far he will eat cheerios, yogurt and baby cereal. He takes his bottles very well.

Here's a pic from our medical exam today:)

Evan in true Vietnam garb:)

I fed Evan some tradition Asian food--- rice. I thought he would naturally enjoy it - he's Vietnamese. He did chew on it for about 20 seconds, then he spit it all out and then laughed:)

Kayla has been a big blessing. here's another pic of them out by the pool.
Water puppets in Hanoi - a $3/ticket, and worth it! I wish I could get a video somewhere with English subtitles. Its an art form from the 11th century!. The stage floor is water, about 2 1/1 feet deep, and the puppets are about 12-18 inches tall, connected to a long pole that is actually under the water. The men and women who guide the puppets are behind the stage, invisible to the watching crowd. There are also fireworks in the show too!

After little over a week, we have watched him grow from a timid little guy to an active, gabbering. laughing boy. He loves to put up his hands when he wants to be held. Needless to say, he has stolen our hearts.