The First Year. Behind The Scenes!

Christmas Eve five years ago we went from a family of nine to a family of twelve!

These past five years have gone very fast but yet very slow.

That first year was pretty intense.

Our first three Liberians, Cyrus,Ekie,and Grace had not even been here a few months and we were already making plans to adopt three more Liberian children.

It was a crazy thing to do but we thought if we are going to do this let's just do it. Kind of like just jump in and worry about learning to swim later.

Looking back we are SO glad we did it the way we did insane as it must have seemed to most.

To top it off, our first three Liberian children were here just four months and we found out we were pregnant with our 8th bio child, sweet little Lily.

So we ended up going from a family of nine to a family of sixteen in just fourteen months!!

I can not even begin to describe how intense things were. I failed so miserably that first year. I still cringe when I think of it.

Haha. God was not just doing some light pruning of my character, he was doing some major uprooting of everything in my life. I mean everything. Nothing seemed untouched.

One would think with all the major refining God has been doing in my life over these past five years, I would feel a little bit closer to a tiny diamond in-the-ruff but I feel even more like a lump of coal that I did before!

~Sigh~

For today

I thought I would entertain you with pictures from that first very intense year.

Here we are in 2006 as a family of nine the Easter before our first three Liberian children came. We took this picture for our dossier.



Here are Grace, Cyrus, and Ekie in Liberia August 2006. This was our referral picture.

Cyrus was 8, Ekie 5,and Grace 2.



This was us as a family of 12 just a few weeks after Cyrus, Ekie, and Grace came home to us.



This is a picture of our first Easter as a family of 12. I will tell you a secret. I had such a hard time adjusting those first few months I did not even get out of bed that Easter. Jeff did everything solo that day. Grant was taking this picture. As you can see,I knew nothing at all about fixing African hair. Poor Ekie and Grace had such sad looking hair for the whole year until Joyce came.



Here is Grace on her first birthday here. She had turned 3. I am not sure why but for most of Grace's first year this was her 'normal' facial expression. It took almost a year for her stools to become normal,as well. I felt so horrible because I felt very little love for Grace that first year. All I could think about was that she always smelled so bad and she would just have such a blank stare most of the time. I did not tell very many people how much I struggled that first year loving Grace because I was so ashamed. I mean,look how just adorably cute she was!!!! Grace herself was such a sweet little girl. The lack of bonding was on my end not hers.



Ekie the first spring she was here. What a little beauty she is!!



It is amazing how much Cyrus has grown these five years. This is the same boy who is with Santa in my Christmas post below.



Now, I feel like my writing in this post is very dry. My words are not flowing out right. But I will leave it as it is, if you do not mind.

I know that I mentioned that that first year that Cyrus, Ekie, and Grace came was very hard and intense. Well, it was but in a heart beat I would do it again. I would change how I responded to different things but as far as adopting all of the kids, I would not change that.

Never.

Never.

Never!

Warmly, A Patchwork Mommy