One year ago today.....

I can hardly believe, one year ago today on a Monday morning we sent in our electronic Letter of Acceptance for our daughter, Lola Reese.

It still seems pretty amazing to me how the Lord worked it all out.......we received a call from our adoption agency on the previous Friday, March 27th, for a referral of a little 3 yr old boy with a repaired cleft lip & palate. He was a cutie. After both Mark & myself prayed and reviewed his file, we then accepted his referral. The rest of the day is kind of a blur but I spent it working and praying to the Lord, if this is our son Lord work everything out, but if it isnt give us the strength to continue on and please find this little boy his forever family.

I didnt know until Mark got home from work that evening that the little boy I thought was going to be my son had already been selected by another family. My prayers had been answered but not exactly how I had envisioned.

Friday nights are always our date night and we went with heavy hearts but hearts knowing our God is in control. On the way to dinner, we saw the biggest most beautiful rainbow I've ever seen. It seemed like it ended directly into the very road we were driving on and we were going to drive right through it. I knew my God had sent us a little sign of love and hope. It was so comforting and amazing; we still talk about that night and that rainbow.

The next day, Saturday, we both got up early and I sat down at the dining room table and opened my computer. Those of you who know me know I dont normally do that. But for some reason I just felt like reading some emails and that was when the phone rang. It was our adoption agengy again. They had another referral for us to review if we were interested. Interested........ you betcha. I immediately told Mark and asked him to come and let's pray before the file uploaded. Then there she was..... our daughter. We knew with a peace that only God can give that the face staring back at us was our daughter. The daughter God had promised us and we accepted her referral before we even hung up the phone with our agency. In a matter of probably 10 minutes our lives were forever changed and blessed beyond measure...

Easter is coming...

It's so hard to believe Easter is almost here. We are deep into preparations for the Easter celebration service at our church and I just love this time of year. It's just so exciting to celebrate our Savior's Resurrection. It is such an amazing gift He gave us. It just fills me with joy and wonder....If only now it would stop snowing,sleeting,and raining in Georgia. We're in the south and it's just not suppose to be doing this.
Dear Lord bring on springtime, sun shine, and beautiful blue skies .... ( but no pollen please ) Cant hurt to ask...

We've also started the hunt for the perfect Easter outfits for church. I have to say this is a dream come true to shop for my little girl's her first Easter dress, her first Easter basket,and course go to her first egg hunt. I can't even wait to dye eggs. Reese doesnt know what in the world I'm getting so excited about these days but I just keep on going and on and she just looks up at me with questions in her eyes. I can't wait until she too realizes what an amazing gift Jesus gave us that first Easter and He's alive in us when we believe and accept Him as our Saviour.

We took her to a " Paper Cutz " party last weekend and she got her picture taken with a rabbit. She just loved the rabbit. I had never been to one of these parties and didnt know what to expect. If you've been to one you know what it's all about, but i didnt. Basically you go get your child or childrens picture taken and then they will make a paper doll cut out of the picture. I think that is so neat but boy is it expensive. I got the proofs but I'm not sure if I can afford the paper doll. All in all it was a fun day out with my daughter and just another precious memory for this first time mom to story away in her heart.

" For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life "

Cooking up something good....

Reese got a marvelously styling strawberry shortcake apron for Christmas. We just had to try some cooking time with mom & dad. Aint she a cutie?

Yippee.... we passed the hearing test

We had to go back to the ENT today for another hearing test. The last hearing test we passed in one ear and failed in the other. But we're praising God today because when we took the test again, 3 months later, we passed. Yeah.... God is so good and we know He heard and answered our prayers. It is so wonderful to see Reese growing and getting better and better each day from her surgery and her ear tubes. She's just amazing.

Holiday's At The Denton's

Greeting’s everyone from the Deep South,

Sorry it’s been so long since we’ve posted on our blog, I’m sure you all know how life can somewhat get in the way of this.

We’ll a lot has happened since our last blog, we had our first thanksgiving and Christmas together as a family which was one of the greatest experiences of all time.

Reese had a ball; she played with aunts, uncles, cousins, and everyone in between till she dropped from exhaustion. She loves family, she loves kids and she loves to eat. I believe that is her favorite pastime, (she just like her daddy!). Reese discovered she likes turkey, ham and most of all mamas’s dressing.

Christmas was truly wonderful, Reese loved the Christmas tree as well as the lights, I think the lights were her favorite part of it all. Everywhere we went during Christmas and every time we saw Christmas lights Reese was saying look, look, the best way she knew how. she loved seeing the lights, so much so she was sad when it all had to come down. But Christmas morning was awesome to see a little child (that had never experienced Christmas before) so excited when she walked into the living room and saw a ton of presents under the tree all for little ole her. (It was also exciting for mom & dad to get to play Santa for the very first time as well). She opened her gifts one by one, tearing off wrapping paper piece by piece only to be wowed by what the surprise was. She understood so much more than we had given her credit for. She is truly a remarkable child and we are very, very blessed--blessed beyond measure to have this precious little girl in our lives, God is amazingly good.

Reese is over her palate surgery now; her mouth is completely healed and looks so good. It took a little getting used to on her part since she had never had a roof of her mouth before, suddenly everything felt a little strange when she ate or drank but in a really good way. She has adapted to it with no trouble at all. We were scheduled to go back to Scottish rite hospital to have the little mouth piece removed that was sown in at the time of the surgery but one day at daycare Reese decided she didn’t want in her mouth anymore and spit it out on her own eating lunch. This was great for mom and dad because we really didn’t want to see her put to sleep again so soon, this was very traumatic for her.

So we are in speech therapy now trying to learn to pronounce letters and sounds to learn how to talk. We are finding out this is a “not so easy task”, Renee & I are having to change the way were accustomed to speaking. Anyone that lives in the south knows how that southern slang can just come right on out without thinking about it. It’s a challenge for all of us but you know God is good and he will see us through this and give us the knowledge to teach and Reese the understanding to learn how to speak.

Here are some recent photos of our family.

Till next time;

4 Months ago today...

It's hard to believe that four months ago today we were meeting our daughter for the first time. So much has changed since we received that quiet little baby girl in our arms. It's hard to believe she's the same little girl.

I remember Dimple ( our guide ) telling us " babies be different babies by Friday no worry." I have to tell you I didnt for one minute believe my baby girl would be changing that much especially after her meltdown with her nannies. But she did.

Time has just been flying by since we got home. Reese is doing great. She's had the major surgery, palate repair, and we are just waiting on the day the retainer can be removed from her mouth. It was a little over two weeks ago, and she has finally started to feel like her old self again. ( We sure had been missing the laughter she brings into our home. ) We are praising the Lord for her healing and her adjustment into our home in the USA. We know she's the daughter God had for us and we cant thank Him enough for this blessing...

Check her out then and now...

What a difference a couple of days make....

It has been five days since Reese had her palate repaired and boy has it been a tough couple of days. I hope we never have to put her through anything like this again. She did great and her doctors think everything went well but it's very hard to see your child hurting and scared. Reese went in Tuesday to have a 2 hour procedure and it turned out to take about 40 minutes.


She sure looked cute before the surgery didnt she?


Here she is right after the surgery. It took me and Mark taking turns holding her all night long to get her to rest and relax enough to let the pain medicine work.

And here she is today. It's great to see her active and herself again.