Two Valentines

God has blessed me with two Valentines in my life. The obvious one being my true love, John. The other is a little girl who came to me on March 8, 1998, then two and a half weeks old.Alyssa was born on Valentine's Day and had spent her first couple of weeks in foster care. John and I had made the decision to adopt again just a couple months before she was born, and had no idea God would bring this little one into our lives so quickly. Only two weeks after we completed our paperwork, homestudy, and profile album, Alyssa joined our family!
Alyssa has always been full of life and adventure, though my favorite personality traits in Alyssa are her servant's heart and her generosity. Alyssa regularly gives to others, she shares without being asked and often spends her money on others. This kindness truly characterizes her, it's part of who she is.
I'm so excited to see Alyssa growing up to be such a lovely young lady, but especially since her decision to follow Christ. This has been a wonderful year in Alyssa's life, as she has been reborn in Christ, and can now celebrate an even more significant birthday in Him. What a joy for John and I as we watch her responding to the Lord's conviction as her desire to please Him is continuing
to grow.
Alyssa, we love you with all of our hearts and thank God for bringing you into our lives eleven years ago.

Holiday Highlights

Baby Noah

Meeting Noah's birth grandparents has me reminiscing... as a result, I have begun a new project. John brought home a VHS-DVD converter, and I am in the process of compiling and editing about six years of video. Here is the beginning of this huge undertaking:

P.S. No comments on the hair please! : )

Love is...

Staying in contact over 11 years, even though we had never met.

We had the privilege of meeting Noah's biological grandparents for the first time this past Thursday night.
Communicating through letters and gifts, Tom and Beverly have been more than generous and kind, persevering for years in spite of the closed doors of Noah's adoption. Now that the door is ajar, we have begun communicating more regularly with the ease of the internet.
I would like to say two things about this family: First of all, meeting Tom and Beverly confirmed my sentiments...they are lovely people. Secondly, I wish we had meet years ago. (Open adoption was not legalized through NC adoption agencies until 2002, six years after Noah was born.)
Noah told us after we left, that although he was hesitant beforehand, he was glad he had the opportunity to meet both of them. (Especially when he found out they are avid Panthers fans!)

Tom and Beverly, thank you for taking us out to dinner last week. It truly was a joy to be with you both. We love you guys, and thank you again for staying in touch.
Tom, Noah has considered your regard for David Garrard, and is now a Jaguars' fan as well. ; )

Emotions and Adoption

It's not uncommon for people to approach me and John about adoption. Recently, it seems there has been a steady stream
of adoption-seekers, wanting counsel/advice/prayer. This week, we received an email about a young pregnant woman in need of
a place to stay until her baby is born (she is making an adoption plan). Today at church an adoptive mother shared about her pregnant niece, and asked for prayer as they pursue adopting
the babies (twins).
In March, John and I will participate in the Adoption Informational meeting at church. I often wonder how God wants to use us in this regards, how would He have us to serve? Is it to promote open-adoption in a closed-adoption-minded society? Is it to merely help people through the process of adoption: the technicalities, finances, emotions? Is it to sympathize with those families who have relinquished children for adoption, still feeling the effects of their loss years later? Or is it to empathize with those facing the heartache of infertility, longing to have a child? How can we serve?
Whenever I talk with a potential adoptive parent, I think about the difficulties associated with adoption...the emotions that occur behind the scenes with closed adoptions (or international adoptions), or perhaps the emotions that confront the parents in the case of domestic infant adoption, as it has us. On an open adoption blog I frequent, I read this quote written by an adoptive father and author, Dan Savage:

"I was 33 when we adopted DJ, and I thought I knew what a broken heart looked like, how it felt, but I didn't know anything. You know what a broken heart looks like? Like a sobbing teenager handing over a two-day-old infant she can't take care of to a couple she hopes can."

From the same blog, a waiting adoptive mother posted: "As the due date approaches, everything seems to grow larger. Forgive the lame image, but imagine all the emotions of adopting as soap bubbles. Until recently, they were wee little bubbles on my mental landscape. One would float up from the depths of my heart, dance around in the breeze and occupy my attention for awhile, then--pop--it would be gone. A bubble of excitement here, a bubble of concern there. But now the bubbles are larger and more frequent. They hang longer in the air, jostling with each other for space. As my joy at the prospect of another child grows, so does my heartache for Ms B*. There are bubbles of affection for Ms B*, bubbles of anger at her circumstances, bubbles of frustration at ethical obstacles, bubbles of gratefulness for the support we each have, bubbles of love for Baby B*, bubbles of sadness for us all."
Wow. I can relate with that one. Funny how those bubbles still linger, even years after the adoption takes place.

*Ms B is pregnant, and has chosen the blog author to adopt her baby. 

Baby B is the baby.

God as Father: Understanding the Doctrine of Adoption

Whether you download this sermon, or listen to it on my blog, please take time to hear this message.

12/23/07 CJ Mahaney, Covenant Life Church, Gaithersburg, MD

Happy Birthday to Spence

With every New Year
comes the celebration of
our sweet gift from the
Lord, Spencer James.
A millennium baby, Spencer was born eight years ago on January 1, 2000. He has been an energetic and radiantly happy child. His cheerful disposition characterizing him since infancy, Spencer began consistently smiling at the young age of three weeks. He delights in making others happy as well. Even tonight we had a houseful of children having supper with us and Spence had them all cracking up. In videos you will notice Spencer making Lauren laugh, as the one below. This is not an uncommon scene:

Spencer also has a very tender heart. He regularly admits his faults when he has done something wrong and asks for forgiveness. Often sympathetic, he notices the emotions of others, and tries to make things better if someone is sad. 
Spencer is sincere and enthusiastic about the slightest kindness. At his birthday party this week, his wholehearted "thanks" were made clear after each gift was opened. He is recurrently grateful without being prompted.
It's hard to believe eight years have flown by so quickly. I distinctly remember Spencer sleeping in my arms the night he was born, and the joy on my Mother's face when we drove by her house to surprise her with our new little one. It seems just yesterday he was pulling out his little "gunnies and fights" (guns and swords) trying to keep up with his big brother, and sleeping with his cowboy hat on. He no-longer calls skeletons "bone-mannies", nor does he refer to my Mom as "Mrs. Grandma". No, my little boy is definitely growing up, and what a delightful "young man" he has become.
We love you, Spencer and hope you have a wonderful eighth year. You bring much joy to those around you, and are a delight to our souls. Happy birthday, buddy.

A Year in Review

We started a new tradition with the Flanigan's Christmas Party. Each family is to bring a video or slideshow of their year, for all of us to see. It's a lot of fun. I'm in the process of working on this year's, but after watching last year's again, I'm not sure I can beat it ;) It was the year God brought Lauren into our lives. Feel free to watch if you'd like.

Thanksgiving

Since I had a request to share about our Thanksgiving, I will acquiesce. To be completely honest, it's a bit of a blur. A busy week, with a lot of cooking and cleaning, I prepared to have a large crowd of folks from John's family over for the holiday. As it turned out, however, we had a very small crowd, with a large-crowd-amount-of-food to eat! : ) Ahhh, but all is well that ends well, right? I will admit to being slightly disappointed that more family could not be with us on this feastful occasion, but we had a very restful day with Bett (John's Mom), Marty (John's brother-in-law) and Marty's two children, Reagan (13) and Taryn (9). Our kids LOVE spending time with their cousins, and although Reagan has grown out of running around in the front yard, racing on bikes and careening downhill on the Green Machine, Taryn stuck like glue to each of our children (who all played outdoors for hours that day!). : )
I, literally, took a nap.
Thanksgiving Day came and went, leaving behind memories, crumbs and a lot of pies!
For those of you who have never seen John's beautiful Mom, here's Bett...

Bett is a godly woman, and any time with her is time well-spent.

The day after Thanksgiving, (the holidays tend to linger over here)... John's twin brother (one of our most favorite people in the world!) and his wonderful wife, Karen, came to visit for two nights along with their bouncing-smiling-sweet-little boy, Charlie. (I've written about Charlie on here before, he was adopted and has been with James and Karen for two years now.) We always love and cherish any amount of time we get to spend with their family. James and Karen drove all the way from CT (12 hours!) with a three-year-old just to see us (well, they came to see Bett too). But, still, what a blessing, right?!
So all-in-all it was a very happy Thanksgiving, and we have many things to be thankful for.
A seasonal highlight for us... here's cousin Charlie with the big kids.

(Don't ya think Charlie looks like he'd fit right in with our family?!) : )

Love Thursday

Well, I have a lot of things on my mind today that I could blog about. But no time to do it! However, since I am taking the National Blog Posting Month challenge, I thought I'd copy a few other ideas from blogs I frequent... like "Wordless Wednesdays" (pictures only to be featured) and "Love Thursday" (highlighting some warm fuzzy in my life). So here's my first attempt:


"Love is not self-seeking." (1 Cor. 13)
One of the things that I love about visiting with Jamie, is her consistent care and attention to all of my children when we are together. No one would blame her if she spent all of her time soaking up hugs and kisses from Bidgie alone. But she doesn't. Jamie always goes above and beyond what any adoptive mother would expect her daughter's birthmother to do. She frequently brings treats or presents for each of the children; but even beyond the material, Jamie hugs, talks, chases, encourages, listens to, and laughs with each of my children... and that is one of the most beautiful expressions of love I have yet to see.
She has a love that delights in making others happy, even above herself.
Thank you for loving us, Jamie. : ) It was so good to see you today!

Cousins : )

One of the things I love about adoption is, of course, the extension of our family! My brother, and his wife and son came over last night to have dinner with us. You may recognize Nicholas from the adoption slideshow presentation I posted last week. Nicholas is adopted too. Isn't he cute?! : )
I often think about the difficulties associated with adoption, primarily the unfathomable loss it represents for the birthfamily. However, I also think about cousins Nicholas, Benjamin (my sister, Gail's son) and Charlie (John's brother's son). They would not be family apart from the loving sacrifices each one of their birthfamilies made. I may never comprehend it, but we are thankful, and totally in love with these precious children. November is National Adoption Month. Can I ask each of you to say a prayer today, for each of my children's birthfamilies, as well as Nicholas's, Benjamin's, and Charlie's? Thank you. : )

Open Adoption Slideshow

Well, some of you know I was on a panel today for our adoption agency. John and I have had the privilege of speaking for them on several different occasions. Today, there was a new twist on my topic, in addition to just sharing "our story" of adopting five kids, CAS (www.christianadopt.org) also asked me to speak about our open adoption arrangements.
Open adoption has many preconceived notions in society, which make their way into the hearts of nearly every potential adoptive parent. Now that John and I have been walking through open adoption situations with our last three children, we have learned that most, if not all these ideas are unfounded. We have received great joy through our relationships with all of our children's birthfamilies, even the ones that are more closed. But there is a unique joy that comes in having an actual relationship with the people who loved our children first. To learn about their background, their personalities, and MOST of all to allow our children to feel their love, first hand...open adoption has been nothing short of a blessing.
We love and respect our children's birthfamilies deeply.
In the slideshow I compiled for this meeting, you will see pictures of several of their families. I hope to honor each of the families represented in this slideshow, may God bless them and fill them with peace.

Welcome!

Thank you for visiting our family blog!
Some of you are probably very surprised to see me join the thousands (probably millions!) of bloggers out there. But if you know me well, you know I thoroughly enjoy posting pictures, and emailing occasional updates about our ever-expanding schedules and very full lives.
My reasons for blogging (at this point) are three-fold. First of all, as an adoptive mother, it is one of my greatest privileges to communicate regularly with some of my children's birthfamilies. This is for you. Also, this blog is for our out-of-town friends and family, (and yes, even those local, fellow-blogging friends) to keep you updated with the goings-on of the Morrison Crew. (We love you guys!) Lastly, I'm hoping as I journal about our family events (which will be archived!), I will be faithful to transfer those memories to my dust-laden scrapbooks. In other words, this blog is for ME, too!
Hope this blog is a blessing to all of you.