I’m struck by the fact that spending time with old friends is, for me, always something of a jarring experience. It causes me to reflect on where I was – and who I was – during the period of our friendship’s development and how things have changed (or not) since then. I find hundreds of hypothetical “what if” scenarios running through my mind – what if I still lived there? Who would I be? What would I be doing? What if this or that had gone differently in our relationship? I wonder…

I think what I’ve concluded is that it’s much more fruitful to reflect on the evidences of what God has done and is doing than to ponder the innumerable hypotheticals. This is how God has chosen to work and what He has chosen to do, and there is much cause for rejoicing and gratitude in that.

I was particularly blessed by the hours that Tammy’s two little girls spent here with us while she was watching Stephen swim (we concluded that the price of admission + the reality of taking 3 small children to a swim meet might not make that a worthwhile venture). Glendy and Larissa are very sweet, and we all, including – and probably especially - Miranda, enjoyed our time with them.

As a former violinist myself, it’s always fun for me to hear Glendy play the very same songs I once learned.

Miranda, as I expected, was totally captivated by Glendy playing the violin…

…at least for a little while Then she was quite happy to help Larissa work on a puzzle!

Several times today Miranda has gone to look out the window to see if she can see her “fwiends.” She has been talking about them and asking to see pictures of them all day - I think that’s sufficient evidence that she enjoyed her time with the girls!

And Matt and I enjoyed the little girls’ presence here partly because they were sweet and fun and entertaining – but also because it gave us a glimpse into what our lives could look like several years down the road with three (or more ) little ones of our own all running around our house and playing together. We’re very much looking forward to that!

However, the second half was a bit more tense, as it seemed the Patriots might win the game. And then when the Giants were ultimately victorious, one member of our family seemed temporarily to go just a little bit crazy!

Others of us - while excited - were able to hold it together just a little bit more.

And thankfully, after some time had passed, Matt was able to continue his celebrations with slightly more restraint, much appreciated by the rest of us, and we enjoyed the rest of our night together

We really did have a good time watching the game together and celebrating the Giants’ victory

It would probably look something like this!

Actually that mess was a lot less daunting than the bathroom’s had been

This is one of my favorite passages of Scripture and, I suspect, always will be. Reading it never fails to transport me back to my freshman and sophomore years of college. I went to Northwestern not sure what I believed about the universe, God, and most of life’s big philosophical questions. For my classes and on my own, I began to read and explore those ideas.

In my introductory philosophy courses, we talked quite a bit about existence – we read Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes, and we discussed the nature of reality and the material and immaterial aspects of our existence and theorized about how we learn and how we know what we know. We studied Plato’s theory of Forms, and we encountered Aristotle’s conception of the Unmoved Mover – something that affects other objects and beings and causes movements and changes in the universe but which itself is not caused by anything else in any way. We grappled with Descartes’ meditations and his inability to, without a benevolent God who could serve as a guarantor of truth, take even one tiny step beyond his only certain statement, “I think, therefore I am.”

At the same time, I was studying the Bible, again both on my own and in my classes. When I encountered this passage, God’s claim to be, “I AM WHO I AM,” I saw not a silly, contrived, anti-intellectual, tribal god of a people group that existed thousands of years ago but a true God who transcends space and time and the customs and desires of any people group. In His very statement of His name, He is claiming independent existence. He is the only being in the universe not dependent upon another in any way. He was not created and is not sustained by anyone or anything else. He has no beginning and no end. He is eternal and self-existent. He is the God that the most brilliant philosophers from all those years ago were seeking out and attempting to describe. He is, in many ways, Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover and Descartes’ benevolent guarantor of truth.

Even in just His revelation of His name, God reveals depths of wonders about who He is and His fulfillment of more than we often think possible. Sometimes, in the midst of laundry and dishes and diapers, it’s hard for me to remember the wonder of who God is. God, please help me to see you more clearly and remember more often.

Matt and I also both had some success today (we think!) in moving toward getting the documents we need to submit with our application to our placing agency. We each put in one document request, and both of us talked with people who said they’d get those documents to us within the next few days, so we’re optimistic – we seem to be off to a good start

God has totally been providing for us through this process. One blessing for which I am particularly thankful tonight is the people He’s placed in our path who have walked this adoption road before us. We’ve gotten recommendations for agencies and for books to read. We’ve heard from different people who have adopted from China what they were able to ascertain about their children’s living conditions. We’re learning about what to expect in the paper-chasing process, what it’s like parenting adopted children, and what it’s like parenting children with various special needs. God has even provided families who have adopted HIV+ children to answer our questions about what it could be like for us to adopt and parent children with HIV – which is especially significant since many of those families are not open about their children’s HIV status. We’re not certain God will bring a child who is HIV+ into our family, but we’re thankful for the willingness of those families to share from their experiences in case He does, and we’re also appreciating learning about more special needs from other families. I’m also thankful for Miranda’s pediatrician and his experience treating kids with various backgrounds and his willingness to help us as we go through our adoption process and – Lord willing! – begin to parent our next child. I’m thankful, too, for great support from our families and church community. I’m feeling very encouraged tonight

Today also, of course, contained much fun with our little Miranda Grace. A sweet friend watched her this morning during our meeting, and for the rest of the day Miranda could not stop talking about her friend Liz and baby Hayden and their dog (his name is actually Roadie, but Miranda seems convinced that he goes by “Pout-y”). Especially since I was away from her for a while this morning, it was great to get to read some books and cook with her and play with her in her kitchen set and talk more about letters and numbers this afternoon and evening. I know you’ll be pleased to see that Matt was able to capture some pictures of us as we played with her letter magnets today – and I’ll leave you with one of those shots!

having fun learning about letters

God has definitely been faithful in His provision for us as we move toward the official beginning of our adoption journey. He’s given us a number of contacts to answer my many questions, some great books from which to learn, and some donations and artwork sales to help us raise much of the money we’ll need to pay the initial agency fees that will be due as soon as our applications are accepted (assuming they are!). I suppose that should give me reasons to trust that He will also be faithful in guiding us through the agency application process – even if that would mean we got an initial rejection for some reason! – as we embark on the journey He has laid out for us.

And beyond those small steps forward in our adoption process, life is going well We are so enjoying these last days of Matt’s winter break, when he’s able to be at home more. We’ve had more family time, as well as more time together as a couple, and we’ve both been tackling organizational projects around the house, turning our house into more of a home (and one that will hopefully be acceptable to our social worker!).

Miranda is so much fun right now and often absolutely hilarious. We moved her from our bedroom into a room of her own in December, and she enjoys that. Her current favorite thing about her room is her “little light.” We got her a light-sensor night light, and she’s basically obsessed with it. It’s the first thing she runs to look at when we go upstairs, and she often talks about it throughout the day. She also loves her family books – those “Who Loves Baby” books with photos of our families inside. Tonight as she was getting ready for bed, she kept talking excitedly about the picture of her cousin holding her upside down – “Cassi hup-a-suh-dow Miranda!” I can’t wait to see how she continues to grow and develop I’ve started teaching her numbers and letters…generally it’s going well except that I can’t get her to say “three” anymore. She started counting by saying, “three, two, three, two” but has now for days consistently said, ”one, two, four, five” with a staunch resistance to the number three, despite all of my attempts to get her to include it. I think we may focus on letters for a while and come back to numbers later So far I know she can identify A, C, M, and Z – and she can probably do more – so I think we’re off to a good start. I think I’m going to love being a real homeschooling mom someday!

I don’t have any pictures (yet) of us playing with letter magnets, but I have managed to capture a few photos of other fun around here lately!

Miranda dancing in my socks

Miranda cooking in her new kitchen!

Matt and Miranda playing with Lincoln Logs (definitely a favorite of Matt's!)

Miranda reading - probably her favorite activity these days - which brings joy to this mommy's heart!

And now I’m signing off for some time to hang out with Matt I hope you, reader, are having a good evening!

I’ve been trying to reflect a bit on 2011, and it seems unbelievable to me that it’s been only one year since December 31, 2010. So much has changed in the last year. Primarily I’m thinking of my daily life with Miranda. A year ago she was still very much a baby – eating only pureed “solid” food, napping twice a day, babbling, and enjoying her fairly new abilities to sit by herself and crawl. And now…it’s hard even to describe the transformation. She’s her own little person. She knocks on doors and runs in and out of rooms, waving and announcing herself with a, “Hi, Mom!” or “Hi, Dad!” She looks for the moon and Jupiter every time we go outside and loves to talk about her friends and family who are also “out there.” She says hundreds of words and requests specific books and songs. She loves to cook in her new kitchen and is thrilled to have her own room now – quite frequently, as we’re climbing up the stairs, she yells with excitement, “Miranda room!” She now also goes to sleep on her own in her bed for both her afternoon nap and her bedtime, though she still comes into our bed at some point during the night, which, to be totally honest, I enjoy – she’s an adorable little snuggle-bug I am totally in love with her and am so incredibly thankful that I get to be her mom and spend my days with her. Motherhood rocks.

And as we look toward 2012, I’m excited. I’m looking forward to more time with both Matt and Miranda, and I’m looking forward to officially commencing our adoption journey. I think my primary goals for this year are to -

- pursue a deeper relationship with God and seek out more time for reflection

- be more organized, both with my time and with my house (which will also facilitate my building deeper relationships with Matt and Miranda, as well!)

- go through this adoption journey well and in a way that honors God

I think it’ll be a good year

Today, though, has been a good day Miranda and I tackled grocery shopping this morning, and while we were away, Matt put together Miranda’s big Christmas present – a joint gift from my dad and Matt and me – an adorable kitchen set. She was absolutely thrilled – and I think a little overwhelmed. The combination of the new kitchen set + the aforementioned lack of normal naps recently resulted in our toddler dissolving into tears in her high chair and confirming that yes, she did want to go to sleep instead of having lunch. That was definitely the low point of the day, but things got better for all of us after that

Miranda took a pretty good nap, which also meant that I was able to put in some good work time, which I appreciated, as I’m rather behind on hours because of Christmas and all of our traveling. And then, as Matt and I were discussing where exactly to put Miranda’s new kitchen set, we decided our living room might benefit from a total rearrangement….and once we had that complete realized our dining room also had much potential to be improved. We successfully rearranged both rooms with our toddler underfoot, which was quite an undertaking. She generally wanted to be exactly in our paths…except when I was vacuuming, in which case she ran to Matt as quickly as possible. We are thrilled with the results, though – we feel like we have much more space now! No pictures are available yet – you know how sometimes you rearrange a room and know that it has a million times more potential than your old set-up, but in the process of rearranging, you tore everything apart and have not quite managed to get it all back to a presentable level yet? Well, that’s where we’re at. Plus, you’ll note that nowhere in today’s list of activities thus far have I mentioned unpacking…there’s still quite a bit of that to be done, so no room in our house is really photo-worthy at the moment! Maybe in a few days

Speaking of photos, though, if you’ve been to my house in the last few months, you’ll know that I’ve had multiple empty frames hanging on a wall in my living room. I knew I wanted to hang up new photos, but I kept putting off ordering prints, because I wasn’t sure how many frames I had or where I wanted to put them, and I was putting off hanging up the frames, because I didn’t have the right pictures in them. Finally I decided to figure out where the frames should go, then order pictures once I had the frames ready…but it took me about 3 months to get from step one to step two. Oops. Before we left for Wisconsin, though, I ordered some photos, and now every frame on the wall in my living room is filled with a photo – yay! It’s little things like that that feel like huge accomplishments to me – particularly as we’re approaching the date when we can begin our adoption homestudy, so I now measure my home against my idea of what a social worker’s standard might be! I kind of thing picture frames full of pictures of our friends and family might make a more favorable impression than empty frames just hanging on the wall

This evening we also enjoyed smoothies and dinner together as a family and watched an episode of StarTrek TNG. Miranda and I are in agreement that Data is by far the coolest character – throughout the episode, she’d look up and say, “Data coming! Data coming!” Here’s a photo of Miranda and me snuggled on the couch, at least, in my otherwise photo-empty post :)

Tonight Matt went out to see a former student who is in town for a visit, and Miranda went to bed, and I was able to do my Bible study, get caught up on the day’s dishes, catch up on a bit of online adoption reading, and work for a little bit more time - phew! It’s been a very full day, but ultimately, I feel so much better when I’m able to have a day that is both productive and full of good times with my family. Here’s hoping tomorrow can be another day like that

And now I’m off to get ready for bed and do some more adoption reading. I have a lot of adoption-related thoughts swirling around in my head right now – perhaps I’ll share some of them next time I write

 ”For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given;

and the government shall be upon his shoulder,

and his name shall be called  Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and of peace

there will be no end,

on the throne of David and over his kingdom,

to establish it and to uphold it

with justice and with righteousness

from this time forth and forevermore.

The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.”

(Isaiah 9:6-7 ESV)

We’re celebrating Christ’s birth in Wisconsin, relaxing and spending time with family. Miranda has, unfortunately, been under the weather the past few days – hacking cough, runny nose, watering eyes, and an occasional low-grade fever – my poor baby We were still able to go to the extended family Christmas celebration and visit with aunts, uncles, and cousins we don’t often get to see, and we had the opportunity to catch up with some good friends last night. We opted to let Miranda sleep in this morning, though, instead of trying to make it to a church service, though we would have loved to have gone. Of course, we made that decision last night, unaware that she would be awake at 6:30 a.m. asking for juice. I initially responded that she could have some juice later, when it was time to get up, which was an obvious mis-step, as her immediate request was then to get up. As I was up until 2:00 last night, and my child usually sleeps until 8:00 or 8:30 in the morning, I was not particularly interested in getting out of bed at 6:30! Thankfully she was somewhat pacified by Matt’s willingness to get out of bed and get her a cup of juice, and she returned to sleep (albeit rather fitfully) for another hour and a half – but I appreciated that extra bit of sleep

We don’t have much planned for the next few days, other than hanging out at my mom’s with the rest of the family, so I’m thankful we should be able to keep things pretty low-key and hopeful that Miranda will continue to feel better.

My little book-lover is of course enjoying reading with both Grandpa…

…and Grandma.

This afternoon we also enjoyed our family’s annual tradition of frosting cut-out cookies. This was the first year Miranda was able to participate at all, and while she certainly didn’t entirely get it, it was fun to be able to include her even a little bit :)

And this evening we snuggled on the couch to watch the Packer game and celebrate their clinching of the number one seed in the playoffs this year!

All in all, it’s been a good day with family I hope all of you have had wonderful celebrations, as well!