4 Weeks!

I can not believe 4 weeks ago today we met Hope & Maggie for the very first time.  Honestly, it seems like so much longer than 4 weeks.  So much has happened and so much has changed.  I wish I could say that things felt normal.  That everyone is doing well. That we are the poster family for older child adoptions.  But I can't.  We have our good days and also our bad days.  I can say, that the good is more frequent than the bad.  But the bad times have been very hard.  I have to keep reminding myself that it's only been 4 weeks.

A dear friend sent me this verse this morning.  Just when I needed to hear it.

"Do not worry about anything; Instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need. And thank him for what he has done. 7 Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.  His peace will guard your hearts & minds as you live in Christ Jesus".  
Philippians 4:6-7

I need to keep reminding myself this. I also need to keep reminding myself that God chose us to be their parents.  Nobody said adoption was easy.  And it's not.  I'm thankful that we have the support to help us when we need it.  Lets just say this morning was not good. But the rest of the day has gotten much better.

The struggles we're facing are more attachment issues I believe.  And of course the language barrier.  Maggie is starting to understand us more and more.  So she's helping to translate things to Hope.  After talking to our social worker today, we are going to make a chart for Hope showing her consequences for her behavior that is not acceptable.  We are going to have it in English and Chinese (we'll ask our friend to help us with that).  I also thought about making a "star" chart for both Hope & Maggie for school.  For every day they have a good report or good day from school, they get a star.  For every 5 stars they receive, they get a reward.  The reward could be an Icee, or treat from McD's etc.  I wanted to include Maggie in this too because she has been good.

So please continue to pray for us.  Pray for the girls as they start school tomorrow. They are very excited.  Pray for us as we drop them off.  That there will be no issues during the day and that carline will go smoothly every day.

Here are some photos for you.  I can already see the difference in the girls appearance.  I think they both have put on some weight.  :-)  And look at their facial expressions.  Wow!

Gotcha Day  8/6/12

Today.  9/3/12

Being Silly!