Love at First Sight

After a long, long flight we met our daughter Eden the morning of April 19th!  We have been in love with this little girl since we saw her first picture, but holding her in our arms filled our hearts greater than we could've imagine.  Here are some of our favorite photos from our time in Taiwan.  I was finally able to narrow down the huge selection of photos.  I hope you'll enjoy a taste of our adoption adventure.

Our daughter is finally in our arms, April 19th!

 This is Mark, Sarah, and Benjamin.  We became parents on the same blessed day.  

They will forever feel like family.

Eden has her daddy's cheeks!

"For this child we prayed," and will continue to pray over.

Chiang Kai-shek Memorial

   

This bridge was the scariest part of the whole trip, for Evan and Mark.  The swinging bridge was over a river through Taroko Gorge.  Evan was so brave crossing this tiny bridge.  I laughed at the guys the entire way, I am short enough that it didn't bother me a bit.

 

Here are a few pictures from around Plum Blossom Lake.

Wild flowers, icecream burritos, and pink meat all  made for a wonderful day. 

Oh, those cheeks!  One of my favorite things in the whole world is kissing those cheeks.

First sleep over with little miss.

 

The road of palm trees to The Home of God's Love.

 Taroko National Park adventure.  From the mountains to the marbled valleys we were in awe of God's creation all day long.

 These three lovely ladies cared for our precious baby girl for 5 months, 

we will forever be grateful for the love and care.

 All dressed up for our AIT appointment.  We passed with flying colors.  

We finally landed in America! 

We took over 1,000 pictures and 3 hours of video.  Every smile and cheek squish does not do this experience justice.  We are blessed beyond measure to have gone on this journey 

to become Eden's parents.  This is truly just the beginning... the beginning of life as a family of three and the beginning of oodles of pictures.

Happy Daddy's Day

Happy Daddy's Day to Evan.  He is truly a fantastic father.  He loves our little girl so much, and I have loved seeing him become a Daddy.  Whenever he comes home from work he instantly gives me and her a kiss and  loves on her.  He always gets the best belly giggles from her.  I am proud to be his wife and to be raising our daughter with him.

"My Daddy Rocks"

Love those cheeks!

This is what our day-to-day looks like.

 

Happy Momma's Day

Being a Mom is a dream come true for me.  I believe it is what God created me for.  I can't thank God enough for the chance to be Eden's Momma.  I also thank Eden's birth mom.  I can't imagine what she went through, but I am grateful she chose life, and The Home of God's Love for adoption.

Oh that smile!  Brings me such joy.

Bless you and Keep You

What a blessing! We are home and doing well. I can not express enough how amazing our God is! We have been showered with blessings as we have prayed and sought God's wisdom for our family. He is so very faithful. Eden is an answer to our prayers and now I pray that we may raise her to bless others. I desire first of all that she knows that she is loved not only by us, but by our God. I pray that I may send her off someday as an arrow on a path toward Christ. Every night, we pray that the Lord may bless her and keep her, that He will make his face shine upon her and be gracious to her, that He will turn his face toward her and give her peace. As I think about the plans I have for my family I am crafting our family values that I want to instill in Eden and any other child that God places in our family. I will share those here after I have shared them with my bride. I want to thank all of you who have been praying for us and supported us through the last 9 months. God is good and we praise Him for such a beautiful answer to prayer.
more pictures to come...

-Evan

Greatest journey

We are flying half way across the world to pick up our beautiful daughter. I feel like we are headed out on a mission trip, especially after our prayer breakfast this morning. The men of the church made a scrumptious breakfast. Mark's prayer brought tears to my eyes. We truly have been blessed by the Lord. We know we are just at the beginning of this journey of becoming parents. We just pray that God will continue to guide us as we fly and lead Eden as her parents. One of our favorite verses was mentioned this morning. "Children are a heritage from the Lord, they are a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior, are children born in ones youth. Blessed is a man whose quiver is full of them, for he will not be put to shame when he stands with his enemy at the gate." Psalm 127:3-5

Hoppy Easter

We had an eggcellent Easter.  (I am a second grade teacher, the puns come with the territory.)  Easter is my absolute favorite holiday.  I love every bit of Easter from the peeps to celebrating the tomb being empty.  Christ rising from the dead is the greatest miracle possible.  I love sharing the Resurrection story with all the kiddos at church.  In the years past we have turned a whole room into the empty tomb and acted out the wonderful story.  This year we actually paired it with David and Goliath.  It was our normal lesson for the week and I hated to by-pass the whole story.  We simply connected the line of David to Jesus.  I also couldn't imagine passing up dressing Evan as Goliath.  The handsome giant was knocked over gracefully by the stone from mini David.  Overall I am looking forward to teaching Eden all about Jesus and the many miracles in the Bible.   We can't wait until next year when we can celebrate Easter with Eden, bunnies and Jesus being Alive!

By the way I spied one of our kiddos holding the same bunny bear while sitting in church.  It warmed my heart. My favorite part of this Easter was seeing our lil miss in her Easter dress.

Whisked Away

After a long week of being sick, and getting the hubby sick, he whisked me away on a weekend trip.  We went to Springfield for some dining and shopping.  We also stopped by Krispy Kreme since the light for fresh donuts was on.  There we met the wonderful Conklin family.  Their little Lindlee is from The Home of God's Love.  They gave us some great tips like "don't eat the pink meat at the park."  They were all very encouraging... especially Lindlee  when she told us goodbye and told  us to "go get your baby!"