He is someone to US...

"I have come to realize more and more that the greatest disease and the greatest suffering is to be unwanted, unloved, uncared for, to be shunned by everybody, to be just nobody (to no one)."
                                                          - Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997)


It breaks my heart to think that before we committed to adopting Joseph, he was "nobody to no one."  He sat alone in his crib in his orphanage and no one was thinking of him.  No one prayed for him or kept a picture of him in their home.  No one was counting down the days till he would join their family and leave the orphanage behind.  No one knew him.  Mother Teresa referred to this as the greatest suffering.

 Yes, Joseph was unwanted and unloved by those in this world...but not by God.  Our Good Lord has always loved him...

 and now we are blessed to love him, too. 

Our sweet little Emmeline Clare has been keeping us pretty busy here at home adjusting our family to this new infant stage and becoming a family of 7...but Joseph is never far from our thoughts and we are looking forward to when we will be a family of 8 and Joseph will know for the rest of his days that he is wanted and loved.

A few pictures....

Dan's Mom came down for a little over a week...it was really great to have the extra help! 
We were sad to see her go on Sunday.  The kids took her leaving particularly hard since we don't have any family living nearby. They know the importance of family and they would love to have our house full of relatives all the time :)

Here's Emmeline at about 1 week...

And here is a pic of all of us with Gramma Perry on Sunday...

 Thanks, Gramma, for coming to help! 

Missing church...

I miss going to our parish church.  Two weeks ago, I was having some pretty close together, hard contractions that made us think I was in labor and kept me home from church that morning.  Then the next week, we had just had Emmeline a couple days prior so I needed to stay home again. 

My midwife came for a one week checkup with little Emmeline and gave me The Talk.  The one about how terrible the flu has been this year, how for infants a cold of flu can quickly turn into a life-threatening illness, how if Emmeline were to go in public right now she could become very, very ill...it all led up to the fact that she was pretty serious about us staying at home for the first 6 weeks.  I nearly lost it!  I am a home body...but I still like getting out and seeing friends, too.  And I don't just miss church...I'd have to be dying to stay home from church.  So the idea of staying put at home for 6 weeks has been quite hard to swallow...usually I have really great nursing babies that travel great with me and I don't think twice about bringing them out.  I always felt like nursing my babies kept them pretty immune from getting sick...but according to our midwife, this is just not enough with all the illnesses going around right now. 

So for now, My family is headed up to our parish church without Emmeline and I... and I will be quietly sneaking the two of us into the back of the tiny, local church closer to home.  No one really knows us very well there,  so I can get away with keeping Emma Clare tucked away in her carseat without being seen.  I'd much rather be bringing her to meet her parish family, but for now we're going to have to keep away for a bit.

To our friends at church...thank you for all the thoughts and prayers and we are looking forward to when we get the "all clear" to be back at church with everyone :)

She's here... :)

Our newest family member is here!

Emmeline Clare
born on January 31st
1:22am
7 lbs 3 oz
20 1/4 inches long

After a crazy week of on/off labor, we finally had our little baby girl :)  We had some very special friends that were more than ready to take our other kids for us so we could labor at home,  but we ended up laboring through the night while all the other kids slept!  They went to bed with no thought of having a new sister yet (since Mom had been having labor all week anyway!) and woke up to find a new sister in Mom and Dad's bed!

Little Emmeline had a rough couple days figuring out the nursing, but she seems to have settled in and is doing great!

  Sorry for taking so long to get an updated post up here...its been quite an adjustment this past week!
I am VERY tired but Emmeline is great and we are very, very blessed :)

Hopefully I'll be back soon... :)
- Kimberly