Snow Birds

Silas face pretty much looks like how I feel when winter arrives.

It looks like he's thinking...."Remind me why we live here again"

I'm glad I pulled out the snow gear yesterday, because this is what we woke up to this morning.

Some of us are more thrilled than others.  Cece thought it was wonderful and Roman is just happy he has something to dig.  He and his shovel are having a fantastic time together.  Thank God for heavy work.

Speaking of Roman, he got glasses last week and I'm happy to report they are still in one piece.  He insists that they make a big difference (even though his prescription isn't very strong) so I'm hoping that it helps with his frustration level when doing book work.  He has done an awful lot of eye rubbing and complaining of head aches lately. 

In other news..

our little guy in a far away land received the care package we sent to him. 

Here he is winding a tiny little transparent music box. 

Looking at some pictures of his new family members and our every day life. 

Some Robeez shoes, socks, treats, animal crackers, a John Deere tractor, a book, a music box and a couple little toys the kids snuck in.  It was a small package but it feels amazing to see something that we held in our own hands in his.   

Oh my heart I can't wait to get my hands on this boy.  We're still hoping for a January trip.  We're currently waiting on our "LOA" or otherwise known as "letter seeking confirmation" which is one of the final steps other than our travel invitation.  We're at about day 48 and in we've been watching other people's LOA come anywhere between about 40 and 120 days.  There's really no rhyme or reason as far as I can tell.  It seems the typical wait is around 65 days.  Once we have our letter we could travel in about a month I think...or on the next month our agency does a trip which in our case would be Jan.  We should have everything done by then, that is unless we got in the wrong check out line for the LOA and it takes 120 days instead of 60.  I'm confident it will all work out in His timing.

This weekend I was given the opportunity to serve lunch at a trade show to raise money for our adoption.  I spent quite a few days last week cooking and baking up a storm (and recruiting my mom to bake as well).  It was actually quite fun, in a totally exhausting way...and at the end of the day we have $275 more for our adoption fund!  

and because life just wasn't interesting enough....

We are headed to Mexico in a week!!

I don't really have time to explain right now how God opened this door for us to go after months of seeking and praying about it (honestly we didn't expect it would happen this year for obvious reasons) but we're super happy to go.  I'll save the story for another post. 

I've been busy sorting donations,  doing the great season exchange of clothing, and packing for a 4 day road trip and a month in Baja Mexico.  

I'm feeling about as scattered as my house looks at the moment.  I'll give you fair warning...if you stop by my house unannounced it pretty much looks like chaos on steroids.  I may even forget your name, or my own...or just stare at you blankly.  My brain is filled to the brim with mental lists and because of of cold and flu season I'm quite sleep deprived.   

Don't judge me too harshly....this chaos has a purpose.  I must admit it's been hard to stay focused on home school lessons when we're only a couple weeks away from smooching these little cheeks.  

We're looking forward to surprising our "Special Seven"...the kids that call me Tia.  

We're super excited to hang out with and serve Amber and Saul and our other friends at EFF!  We're also super duper excited to gorge ourselves on tacos and tamales.   It will be a bit of a whirl wind fast trip down and back.  Because it's such a last minute spontaneous trip we don't have a lot of firm plans as far as "projects" but we're going to rent a house in town again and make ourselves available to whatever (or whoever) the Lord has for us.


The thought of being gone while finishing up two adoptions and then possibly leaving again in January kind of makes me want to breath into a paper bag!...and thinking about all that needs to be done makes me want to take a nap.   If you don't hear from me for a bit it's fair to assume I'm neck deep in a pile of mess somewhere, attempting to teach a home school lesson, dissociating from my to-do list by wasting time on Facebook, tending to my neglected children, or trying to scrape up something for dinner.

I'll do my best to take my blog friends along with us again this year...so stay tuned for another Burlando family adventure.


Soli Deo Gloria,

Testify

Can I get a witness up in here?

"We have come to testify...
God is surely great"

I was blasting this track (featured below)  from my stereo in the kitchen, when Miss Cece came wandering in with her new tambourine   A tambourine that I bought yesterday at a second hand store (you know the depths of desperation I had sunk to, when letting my 2 year old play a tambourine 40 minutes home from town was the best option).

This afternoon, I smiled as I watched her dance, jump, sing/hollar, and bash her tamborine to the music.   She sang "ooooo"  "hawewuwah!".

She has no idea.  She has no idea why mom was singing "Hallelujah" this afternoon.

She has no idea that today her mommy and daddy just signed the last of the papers....the papers with her new name.   The papers that will soon be sent to the judge.  The papers saying, YES we want this child!

She had no idea, even while we were in the case workers office, what we were doing, she was only concerned with shouting "POOPY!" and being taken out to the bathroom three times (none of which she actually pooped).  Between potty trips we did manage to get all the lines signed and have the documents read to us.

She has no idea that her life could have been very different.  She has no idea everything is about to change and yet nothing will change.... the best part is she will notice nothing.   She will become ours very soon...but being ours is all she remembers.  No new home, no adjustments, no grief or trauma....just being labelled a  "foster kid" one day and officially  a "daughter" the next.

Our God is truly good.

He sets the lonely in families.  He raises up the least among us for His purpose.  A sick baby no one wanted, is a beloved and cherished child .  We breath a sigh of relief, exhale from two years of uncertainty.

We are here to testify.

God is surely great!

Filled up with Thanks

Today is Thanksgiving in Canada.   Our American neighbors to the south also have a 'Thanksgiving' holiday but they celebrate late in November.  Our Holiday lines up with Autumn and harvest.  It is a day set aside to reflect on the abundance we have and give thanks to God for our blessings.  

We started our holiday a little early with a visit to our good friends who live a few hours away. 

I'm so thankful for friends that are just as strange as we are.  It's not very often in life when you find a family that meshes completely and naturally with yours.  The more our life looks a little odd, or we make decisions that are out side of the norm...the more we come across raised eye brows,  criticism, or the opinions of others on how our life should be.  Not that we expect, or require, the approval of anyone...I had my people pleasing idol painfully crushed a few years back.  We have friends and family that we dearly love and enjoy spending time with on all different paths through life, but it's completely refreshing and encouraging to just put our feet up and hang out with our friends who "get" us.  They have the same love for Jesus, the same intentional heart for orphans, the same passion for traveling to serve and love people who are living in desperate circumstances,  they happen to home school their kids, they have a larger than average family, the same sense of humor, and they even drive a big old van like we do.  

 If you've ever home schooled, lived as a mixed race family, or adopted you know what an asset and gift it is to be able to share struggles, glean wisdom, and gain lots of practical advice on everything from curriculum choices, to parenting a child that has a past filled with trauma and loss.  

It's pretty awesome just to be our "weird" selves...and have sweet fellowship in our weirdness.  We spend a lot of our time together laughing...and drinking a a lot of coffee (the secret to keeping up with 10 kids) 

I love all of our kids!...and I love that our families are continuing to expand, and that they will grow up sharing life together.  

Duncan, our friend's new puppy is the newest addition to the pack.

Our Thanksgiving weekend Saturday included cleaning up the yard and garden for winter, washing windows and generally preparing to be snowed in for the next several months...and then tea and cake with friends we haven't seen in a while.   On Sunday we worshiped with our church family, drove out for a quick visit to see my sister and her new little princess.  After that visit, we joined with some friends from church, two other young families, and had a delicious thanksgiving dinner complete with home made pumpkin pie.  We got home late again last night now I have a horribly crabby over tired toddler to bring me back down to reality.  It was worth the pay back though.

Roman is away on a fishing trip with grandma and grandpa.  We're expecting him home tonight and I know he'll have many tales of adventure to tell us.  

My new little neice is such a gorgeous baby...she looks so incredibly familiar as I clearly see two of my sisters in her little face.  

It was pretty sweet to hold a newborn baby again.  

A proud cousin marvels over her tiny little hands.

This guy has always adored babies. 

Today, and every day, I have SO much to be thankful for.  

I am thankful for each one of my five little treasures. I am thankful to have a husband who is continually growing deeper in his faith and selfless love for his family.  He intentionally and humbly leads his family closer to Jesus.  I am thankful for a husband who only has eyes for me, and still tells me everyday that I'm beautiful.   I am incredibly thankful that both of our adoption processes both have an end in sight.   I am amazed, and humbled, and so filled with thanks that our China adoption is now fully funded...and that money will not stand in the way between us and our new son.  I'll write more on that miracle later.

I am thankful for family, for friends, for new life, and growing families as hearts and homes are opened.  I'm thankful that God provides what we need before we even realize we need it. 

I am thankful that a holy and good God would love a wretch like me.  I thankful that He lived the life I couldn't live and died the death I should have died. I'm thankful that I am now free, and no longer a slave to myself.   I am thankful that I stand completely covered in the righteousness of Christ, a righteousness that I could never earn, merit or add anything to.....AND as if that wasn't enough, that He would have a beautiful purpose for this broken, redeemed, vessel.   In Christ, I can live life abundantly, secure, and filled with every good gift, continually amazed that He would fill me up, so that I can be poured out for His glory.  

Soli Deo Gloria,

A Letter to my Chinese Prince

Dear son,

My heart misses you today.  Actually I miss you most every day, which still astonishes me because I've never actually known you.  I know about you, I've seen your smile, heard your voice, and studied every facial expression but I have not yet  held you in my arms.  I have not yet comforted you during illness, I've never wiped away your tears with my hand, I've never watched you sleep in my arms...but somehow my mother's love has expanded to encompass you, my son, even as we wait.  Our lives are inexplicably intertwined, our hearts meshed for reasons and purposes I cannot comprehend.

 We are living in the time in-between.   You are mine and I am yours,  but the ultimate fulfillment of that promise has not yet come...and so we wait.  We wait in eager expectation.  We wait with readiness and preparation.  We wait with deep longing, like the pangs of labor waiting for new life.

This is the time of hope, knowing that what is yours is now being secured, that someday soon you will be in our arms.  Your Baba and Mama will come.  We will come and we will bring you to the home we have prepared for you.  A home filled with your brothers and sisters, and more noise and love that you will know what to do with.

Even as I write those words I am reminded of how we wait for Jesus to return, to gather together his Bride, and to take us home forever.   Our status is secured, our ransom was paid, the papers have been signed but yet we wait for the fulfillment of the promise.  We live in the time in-between.  We wait with confidence and hope, we wait with purpose and preparation, we wait in eager expectation, we wait with longing for the day when every tear will be wiped from our eyes and all things will be made new.  We wait to feel the arms of the One we love....the One who loved us first. (John 14)

I know that it is so hard for you to comprehend our love for you, and it is impossible to understand the word "forever".  I know that as you trust your life to us, it will, at times, be terrifying   All that is comfortable and familiar will be gone, and a new life as a son will begin.  Learning to be secure in that will be a long road, it is a road we will walk with you.  There may be days when you doubt and you strive to earn our love, fearing it will be taken. There may be days when you decide you don't need it at all, that the risk is just too great.

I can't promise you that we will know how to perfectly handle every fear, hurt, and doubt but I can promise you that we will love you with a never giving up, always and forever love....a love that that can't be earned or lost, a love that will spend itself, a love that will travel from one world to another to say "you are my child".

We will lack, we will make mistakes, we will fail along the way, but I know that we are loved by a Father who's grace can cover over all our blunders....who's love never fails.  A Father who is a father to the fatherless.  We can rest in Him...a flawed mother and a wounded son, together, secure in our Refuge.

You are so much more loved, and so much more wanted than you could ever know.

"I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you"  John 14:18

Love, Mama

Soli Deo Gloria,

All About My Girl

I haven't written about my little Miss Cece in ages.

Actually, I haven't written about much in ages.
My blog has been a bit neglected...not because life hasn't been a wild ride lately.  Oddly enough sometimes the more that's happening, the more I'm learning and growing, and more deeply I'm being refined the more I don't even know where to start or what to write about.  I guess all that's in my head and heart sometimes has to sit and percolate a bit before it can be formed into words.

So I'll narrow it down and write about my little girl.

 One very exciting development is that we're FINALLY in the finishing stages of Cece's adoption.  After 2 1/2 years the paperwork is finished and we are basically just waiting for it all to go to court.  Hopefully that will happen within the next month or two.

This week we received her "file" which is her entire social services, medical and family history wrapped up in a binder.  Fascinating, nauseating, thrilling, and horrifying.  It is amazing to have the veil of secrecy pulled back and finally have answers to all the things we have intentionally been kept in the dark about as "just" foster parents.


 It also made me cry as I flipped through family history and records.  So much brokenness and pain.  Generation upon generation upon generation.   Overwhelming.  I cry because they are real people.  I cry because  these are the pieces of the puzzle that I will carry for my child, the pieces that will be hers to carry...and to lay down.  I cry for a mother who's own life and childhood is layer upon layer of pain. I cry for what she has lost.  I cry, and at the same time I thank God for stepping in and throwing a wrench in that furiously spinning cycle.  He reached in an pulled out one tiny little raven haired girl.  His providence and protection of this fragile little girl is written all through this binder.

Her history will always be echoed  in her shining black eyes, in her ear to ear smile, in her rosy round cheeks, in every part of her beautiful little design.  I will love that about her biological family.

Traces of the sins of others will be carried in her veins, and in her mind, and in her heart...BUT GOD.  I love the "but God"s in the Bible.  I love the "but God" in our story.  What Satan intended for destruction, our Father will use for his glory. What Satan has had a death grip on for decades, Jesus has set free. What has caused so much damage, will be healed.


I was dead in my own sin, without even a hope of saving myself,  BUT GOD in his great mercy and love reached down and plucked me out of the mire and adopted me as his own child.

BUT GOD.

Through no plan of my own, God in his great purpose and for his glory, saw fit to take this orphan named Carla and make her a daughter.

God brought together two painfully ordinary people, created a new family, and in time began to miraculously mend and restore our own broken family tree...and now has begun to graft on new branches.  I LOVE how God can bring beauty and life out of utter despair and brokenness.


 As I read through our daughter's history, and all that went on behind the scenes that placed her in our home (and allowed her to stay with us) I wept because at SO many points our story ,and hers, could have turned out very very different.  She so easily could have been one that slipped through the cracks.  One the system missed.

Out of the ashes He is making something extraordinary.

2 1/2 years ago we had just returned from 6 months in Mexico.   We unpacked and settled in for a couple weeks and then asked the Lord to once again allow us to love a child that needs to be loved...for however long we would have with them.  A couple days later we received the gift of a tiny, scrunched up, screaming 5 wk old.

As I spent days and nights soothing a colicky newborn I honestly wondered what I'd gotten myself into.  I came face to face with  my own self preservation, and selfish motives.  There were a few moments in the beginning when I considered giving this "gift" back, reclaiming my own life, and emancipating myself from someone else's burden....but over the days, and weeks, and months I grew to love her as fiercely as any mother loves her child.

When Cece came to our home we had NO idea that she would ever be our daughter.  We had no idea what her case plan was, where she came from or why she was with us.   We had no idea when she would leave...but we knew as foster parents that someday she would leave.  Just the thought of saying goodbye tore out my heart.

Today we are waiting for our final court document saying that she is forever our daughter, that no one can ever claim her and take her from our home.  She will no longer be a "foster child" that can be taken , returned or passed around from home to home.  She will be a full heir, a rightful member of our family, a beloved forever daughter.    She will be fully grafted in to our crazy little family tree.

Today Miss Cece is a charming, exuberant  little bundle of life and joy.  She is chalk full of personality.  Her smile and ridiculously generous giggle still lights up our home.   She is a full fledged 2 year old little princess who insists she wears frilly skirts and purple rubber boots together to church.

It's been so cool to see her personality, gifts, the little person God created emerge and bloom.

 Cece is a little mother.  She will "mother" anything she can get her chubby little arms around including her older and much bigger siblings.  She is a natural care taker and nurturer.  She loves and rocks her baby dolls...she wraps her arms around and strokes the hair of any sibling that happens to be upset, hurt, or sick. She adores and takes good care of her Daddy.  She has a very strong natural sense of empathy and compassion.  She is just a natural lovie.   She loves well.  

Cece a silly little bean.   She is full of goofy antics, expressions and loves to make us laugh.  She loves to sing, dance and make jokes.

Cece has a mind of her own.  Although she is not particularly strong willed (compared to a couple of my other kids) she knows what she wants and she knows what she likes.  She is asserting her autonomy more and more, as any two year old does.  She can throw an impressive little princess fit, but it rarely lasts long.  She's super sensitive and her natural inclination is to please her parents, she is very easily corrected and very quickly "lowy" (sorry)...which is a slightly refreshing surprise after bringing Silas through his preschool years.

Cece is smart.  She constantly amazes me with her cleverness.  Of course, we have always watched carefully her development and abilities but so far she is totally on track and even excels in many areas of development.  Her fine and gross motor skills, her problem solving, understanding non verbal ques, her sense of humor, understanding cause and effect, her understanding multi-step directions and follow through actually surprise me...mostly because our other kids all had difficultly with some of these areas.  The only area that is lagging slightly behind in is her speech but it's finally coming and she's adding words every day.  She has never lacked for creative ways to express herself.

I am constantly amazed at how God protected her mind and body as she was developing in the womb, and has protected her little heart every day since then.

Cece is now potty trained!  I didn't know if that would come late, or with more difficulty but by 2 1/2 she was ready and it actually came easier than it did for my last couple boys!  She still isn't 100% reliable of course but she no longer wears a diaper and she comes running and tells me when she needs to go.

 I love this little girl with a never ending, never giving, up always and forever love.  This is my little girl who I would go to the ends of the earth for, give up my own life for, and live every day for.

I have no idea what God's plans and purposes are for this little precious little one.  I do know that she belongs to her Father, her Creator, first and I can trust Him with her, whatever lies down the road.   I still can't believe that we have been given the incredible privilege of loving and raising this child.

She is such a blessing and a gift.




Soli Deo Gloria,

I Always Wanted a Pet Monkey

When I was a kid I thought it would be really cool to have a monkey for a pet.  Of course this was based more on Disney movies and cute little Chimps dressed up as people than it was any actual real experience with monkeys.  

I never got my pet monkey, 

but I did get a monkey for a son. 

Which actually comes in handy when you need to get something out of a tree, or in this case when my clothes line came off it's wheel.

I made the mistake of grumbling about my out of service clothes line in front of my monkey son.

A few minutes later I looked out the window to see my child doing his mother a favor.   

He couldn't get the wire unwedged  and back on the track...while maintining his precarious position.  I told him to please come down and not to worry about it. 

Even without a functioning clothes line it is pretty cool to have a monkey for a son. 

More about him...

In my last post I introduced the boy who will soon officially become our son.  We are already "matched" to him but until our thumbs are pressed down into red ink in an office across the ocean it's not finished.  We anticipate and long for the day when he will forever be ours.

When navigating the jungles of international adoption one has to tread carefully, choose words wisely, and use discretion in what to share publicly and what not to.  Sadly, the reality is we live in a world that largely despises adoption.  Because I don't quite have all the boundary lines figured out yet, and each situation is different, I'll probably be somewhat reserved in sharing specific details about our child...at least until we get him home.

I do want to share my experience with you though.  I appreciate those people who come here, for whatever reason, and want to share in our life and encourage us along the way.  If by sharing our experience it emboldens someone else's faith enough to step out and say yes to an orphan then I will write until the cows come home (a little bit of farm girl talk sqeaking out).

We are still super excited and it's  finally sinking in that this is really happening, and we have just a few months left until he's here.

Today we bought this stroller.  I'm silly excited about it too...our last umbrella stroller was 11 yrs old and begging to be put down (oh man, there's that farm girl talk again!).  We needed something light weight, compact, good quality, and yet big enough to hold a small 6 yr old.   I've been scouring online second hand stores and advertisements and finally came across one of these (the exact one I'd been drooling over) being sold privately but in the box brand new.  Score!  It has a very tall head clearance and goes up to 55 lbs.  Our little guy is only about 35 lbs so he's got lots of room to grow.

You might be wondering why I've been so concerned with having the right stroller along with us when we're adopting a 6 year old child.   The answer to that is that he doesn't walk at all yet.  Our child has cerebral palsy.

We don't know the details or potential of his gross motor skill abilities or the full extent of his challenges... but we do know that he recently came out of an institution where he had been classified as bed ridden and had been spending his days and nights confined to a crib.   I don't know a huge amount about CP (although I've been reading all I can about it in preparation) but I know enough to say for certain that lack of movement and nurture is not conducive to reaching any kind of developmental potential....even in a child without CP.   His little muscles will certainly be tight and atrophied.  It really will be incredible to see how he grows and develops in the years to come!   At this time we have no idea if he will ever walk unassisted.  We really don't have any idea about what his potential is in any aspect of his development.   He may completely surpass any thing we ever thought he would be capable of.  That would be amazing. We are trusting God in that area and quite honestly it really doesn't matter to me all  if the greatest success in his life is getting himself dressed each morning.  Our view of "success" is largely different from most of the world anyway.  We will celebrate each little hard earned victory along the way.

  When we started the process we left our range of "special need" acceptance wide open and included many different special needs on our application.  We also were open to either a boy or a girl, and to a child up to the age of our oldest. It was really a strange experience to be writing down things like Spina bifida,  Cerebral Palsy,  Hep C, HIV, limb deformities, cleft lip and palate, blindness, deafness etc.   So many diagnosis's that, at one point in our life, we would have been horrified to hear our child had.   Now we are requesting it.  The irony of it was not lost on me.  Only a work of God does that to a person! Somehow he's taken my self preserving, comfort loving little heart and regenerated it into one that longs to be poured out.

In the months before we started this process we felt led to open up our hearts and home once again, we just had no idea how God was going to bring us our next child.  So I started praying about it.  I prayed that God would lead us to the child he has prepared for us, whether that was in our own country or somewhere else.  After choosing the China special needs program (being unexpectedly led there), we prepared and we prayed again.  We prayed for the child we did not yet know.   When we first saw his picture, I can't really even describe it,  it was him.   We knew it was our son.  I knew it like staring into the face of one of the children I had just given birth to.  That may sound just plain bat crap crazy to some of you reading this...but to others who have walked this road before you may know exactly what I'm talking about.  It's a work of the Holy Spirit moving and guiding.   I don't know why or how, but that's how we knew to say "yes" to this child.  The love that God has given us for this little boy we've never met is astonishing.

So that's how we got to where we are today.   It's a pretty amazing trail looking back over the years.

So now we wait and we prepare.   We pray for our child so far away.   We pray that each little bit of our lives and the lives of our children (even  especially the one who lived only an hour, and the child who may never walk or tie his shoes)  will bring glory to our Lord, and make his mercy and grace known.     Our son's life will be an amazing testimony of our good God who sets the lonely in families.

Soli Deo gloria,