Thanking God

This morning I was up at 3:00 am doing baby Payton duty and after changing a screaming babies diaper and getting settled for the bottle feeding, I looked down at my beautiful baby.

I was overwhelmed with the thankfulness to God for giving me this amazing baby and so today I am here to blog about my love for God, Payton, Todd and our life together! I won't be where I am without my loving God and I am glad to have had that moment this morning to thank God for the gift that Payton is to our family!

Today is Payton's 6 month birthday and she has been with us now for 2 months and we are head over heels in love with our family. Payton is a joy and it is fun to watch her laugh and grow and Todd and I could not be  more blessed with such an amazing child! We love parenting her and she is a blessing!

Thank you all for your prayers! Thank you for your continued prayers as we continue in this adoption process of our little Payton!

Every moment

Well moments are flying by in our lives and I do wish there was a pause button but at the same time I would never stop the growing and learning that is happening, life in the Peters household right now is amazing!

I love the sweet moments with my baby Payton. I love the smiles in the morning when you go to get her up from her crib. She is truly happy to see either Todd or myself and the smile and laughs are the best. She is a great sleeper and we are blessed!

I love when Todd or I walk in the room and Payton lights up! It is a joy to parent her and a fun experience to have with my husband. Todd is a wonderful father. I have started back to work full time and Todd is home with her all day. He is amazing and Payton loves him so much!

I love rocking Payton to sleep as she holds my hand. I love the sounds she is making and the talking she is trying out. I love the full out belly laughs and the giggles when we tickle her or play peek a boo.

We feel so blessed to have Payton in our lives and we are trying to cherish every moment with her. She is growing fast though. Today for the first time she is wearing 6-9 month pjs. What happened? Just yesterday she was wearing 0-3 months and next week she will be 6 months old.

I am so in love with motherhood. I love watching her roll over and looking for us when she hears our voices. I love watching her try to sit up by herself and how proud she is when she is sitting by herself, don't worry we are always with her because she is still a little wobbly.

I just love every moment with my family! I love Payton more every moment and I adore watching Todd as a dad.

We continue to feel blessed and continue to want to thank all of you for your gifts, nice words, and mostly for your prayers. God directed Payton into our lives and every moment we are thankful for his guidance and provisions in our lives!

Miracles

As someone who works at a church you get all kinds of questions...
Like when I first started coaching at the public middle school the students asked if I was a nun because I was a lady working at a church (I was in shorts and a tee shirt). I chuckled a little and said no.

I often ask myself faith related questions too when reading the Bible or a devotion and one of them always seems to be... Do you believe in miracles today?

Clearly if you read the Bible you see the miracles that occurred  water to wine, healing the sick, and the list can go on and on. But what about miracles in modern times? Does God do miracles?

I can firmly say yes! We are living a miracle! We had been on the list a while for our adoption and we were having lunch with my parents and Todd and I were expressing how ready we were for a baby to be placed with us, now it was October and a busy time of the year for me but that didn't matter we wanted our baby. We knew our lives would change and we would forever be different than before but our hearts were ready and the longing was deep in our souls. My mom said that God has the perfect baby for you and we just have to pray and believe that the timing would be perfect!

Little did we know that our Payton was already born, no wonder we were wanting our baby home- she was already in this world! It is crazy to think that God knew our hearts desire and why it was so deep before we could explain it!

Miracles happen and our adoption story is a miracle.

We used an agency in town that only really works with international adoptions and we have a local baby placed with us. October is a crazy busy time but January is perfect for taking some time to bond with our little peanut. The crazy thing is that our Payton looks like us, everyone who meets her says that she looks just like us! She truly is meant to be our baby!

When we think of the story as a whole it is a miracle. God provides for us in ways we don't even know or can't ever fully understand.

And so I want to say thank you! Thank you for all your prayers! We know that we have a true gift from God and that your prayers surrounded our adoption and we are so thankful!

Thanks

A season of Thanksgiving

This morning when I got up I was thinking of all the things I was thankful for... do we have to list our blessings and thanks just at Thanksgiving. No! In 1 Thessalonians 5:18 it says, "give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus." 

Here is my list of things I am thankful for:

God: I am thankful for my faith. I am thankful for a God that loves me and provides for me and when life gets crazy I know that God is always with me. The peace that comes from having a relationship with God is truly amazing!

Todd: If I could choice to marry anyone in the world, I would pick Todd every time. I love him. I am thankful every day that he is my husband. I am thankful that he is my child's dad and I am so thankful for his patience and understanding. I am thankful for his sense of humor, his kindness and for his help!

Payton: If you have not met my new love of my life, when you do, you are in for a joy! She fills the house with smiles and love (and when she wants her bottle a scream or two!). She loves to laugh and play and she fits PERFECT into our family and we are so thankful that God has given her to us!

Family: Where would I be without my family and Todd's family? Up a tree with no idea of what to do; I honestly don't know how people go through life without a strong family unit and I have a blessing of having two strong family units. Strong family where we can ask for help, celebrate joys together, love spending time together and just share a love that never ends. I couldn't be more excited to have Payton be a part of our families! She is loved beyond any measurable amount by all of our families and we are thrilled!

Friends: We have wonderful friends! They come and support us when the family is not around. They keep me sane and we are blessed to have both wonderful family and friends. I am so excited for Payton to have friends of our friends. Our friends and church community are hosting a baby shower on Saturday and we are so thankful for everyone's generosity. Todd was sick with the flu for a week and friends helped out greatly and we are so appreciative. 

Church Community: I have been able to take time off from work to bond deeply with Payton and make sure she understands that I am her mother and the church has been amazing! They have given me the time off but more importantly they have fully embraced us as a family! They have sent cards, meals, flowers, and just been such an amazing support. Pastor Tom stopped by and prayed with us as a family and it has been a joy to have such lovely support and encouragement. 

Birth family: We are so thankful that Payton came from a loving family. They gave her such a great start at life and we will also be thankful for the love they gave Payton and for the hard decision they made to give her up for adoption out of love. We will forever be thankful to them!

Hunter: If you have ever come to our house you know that we have this dog who is hyper and can still jump when he is not getting enough attention but in spite of that I am thankful for his gentleness and I am thankful for how great he has been with Payton. He gives her kisses and Payton talks and talks to him and it is fun to watch and I am thankful for our crazy family dog!

Thank you to all of you! Thank you for your love, support and gifts! We are blessed! 

Miracles Happen!

My devotions lately have been about miracles and I was getting tired of waiting for our adoption so I told Todd to start praying for a miracle. He said ok do you have anything in mind and I said yes! I want a baby in our home by March.

Not impossible but that was the miracle I wanted. We continued to wait and pray hard about getting a baby in our house by March. Well on Wednesday, December 19 we got a phone call from our home study agency and they said they had a situation they wanted to talk to us about so on Thursday, December 20 we went into the agency.

They told us about a 26 year old birth mother who gave birth to a baby girl in Falmouth in September and how her and her grandparents want to give the baby up for adoption. We talked for a while about what would be the next steps, about the baby, the family, getting all the details we could.

Then we decided that it sounded like something we would be interested in and would like to continue in the process. We all celebrated Christmas and then today, Dec. 27 we went to the office and met first just us and the birth mother, then they added the birth grandparents in and then we left and the family decided that they wanted us to meet the baby.

We got to meet the beautiful baby girl. She has chunky cheeks, big brown eyes, amazing eye lashes and was so happy. Todd and I both got to hold her, talk with her, she looked at us and talked with us. She is awesome!!

The things that stand out to know are the family wants to make sure she knows she is loved, they are putting her up for adoption because they love her enough to say that they are not able to raise her. We love that she comes from a loving family, that she was well taken care of before she was born and after. We are excited for the chance to add the beautiful baby girl to our family! She is 3.5 months old and will most likely come to our home on Januray 2! We will call her Payton Karyn and 6 months after she is placed with us; we will legally become her parents and change her birth certificate to say Payton Karyn.

We are going to work hard to bond with her so she gets to know us as her parents, to have her trust us before the strange anxiety stage sets in. Please pray for us as we adjust to this big exciting awesome change!

Miracles do happen and God is an amazing God!

Now is the time!

We want to thank all of you for your support of our adoption. Todd and I can't even begin to thank you all for your prayers and support.

We are going to be closing our tee shirt website on January 15 so if you would like to order a tee shirt and support our adoption please get your orders in now!

You can go to... http://www.adoptionbug.com/petershopefaithjoyfamily/
to place your order and while you are there please order a shirt for your friends, family and yourself!

There are shirts for men, women, boys, and girls! Thank you to all who have already ordered a shirt! We hope you enjoy wearing them. It so warms our hearts to see you wear the shirts. Thank you!!

Our families wearing their shirts! (my mom, Todd, Todd's dad, and I)

Our friends: The Shea's modeling their family adoption tee shirts!  

Todd and I in our tee shirts!

Merry Christmas