Watch. Consider. Pray.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Keller family!

We have so much to be thankful for this year. We celebrated the birth of our son, Aaron Matthew in June and are now expecting the arrival of our son from Ethiopia sometime this spring. As I sit here at the kitchen counter, I am thinking about a verse that Aaron and I read out of the bible while waiting for Jack to come home from work. We were reading in Luke 2 and there is a verse that always jumps out at me whenever I read it. "...but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often."

I feel a little like Mary tonight....my heart is full as I reflect back over the last year and look forward to the next. We have been so richly blessed. We have so much to rejoice over this year - a healthy son, the journey of adoption - and the referral of another son from Ethiopia, good health, a stable job, a warm home, food in the pantry, wonderful friends, precious family....

As a family we also faced the unexpected and had many opportunities to grow in faith and trust of our Savior - pre-term labor contractions, bed rest for 12 weeks, financial adjustments as I became a stay-at-home mom, the journey of adoption (it has many ups and downs :), on-going health concerns for Jack, praying and searching for a new church family....

Through the times of rejoicing this year and the times of refinement one theme is resounding in our hearts - contentment. We don't want to be a family that is only interested in the gifts & blessings of God. We want to be a family that is in love with the Giver! We want to be fulling satisfied in the Giver - not just in His gifts. God is enough. He is satisfying. He is beautiful. He is able to do more than we could ask or imagine. He is worthy of all that we are, do and have. He is the only one that will not disappoint us. His love for us is sure. His mercies are new each morning. He is our Father, Defender, Strong Tower and Rest.

May our greatest gift, Jesus, delight you with more of Himself today!

 

Placement Papers

Yesterday we got our packet of placement papers in the mail! Yay! We have one form to notarize tomorrow and then they will be back in the mail to our agency. We are hopeful for a court date in about 6 weeks time. We have had fun putting together a welcome packet for baby M. We have included a disposable camera and are excited to get to see pictures someday of these next few weeks that his nannies take of him and the care facility. These will become a special part of baby M's adoption book. There is a family who traveled yesterday to ET to pick up there children. We put in a picture request of baby M and so we are hoping by Christmas to have some more pictures!

Referral!

Yesterday we got the phone call that we have been waiting for for a long time. Our agency called us to tell us that there was a precious 3-4 month old little boy that was in need of a home.

The miracles that surrounded yesterday were so sweet. Jack was working out of town and called me early in the morning to tell me that he had forgotten to take his medicine that he needs to take each morning. As a result, he was going to have to come back to town early.

I was on the phone with a friend when I noticed I had an incoming call. When I answered, the director of our agency asked me, "Is this a good time to talk about a baby." "Of course," I said!

As soon as I got off of the phone with our agency, I called Jack and wouldn't you know that he was just pulling into town. How sweet it was for him to be home so that we could read our referral email together and get to see the first picture of our little one together as well.

I don't think that we have ever had a day like yesterday....I think we felt every emotion in the book. Extreme joy and excitement while at the same time extreme sorrow and loss. That is the thing about adoption - our joy has been another person's sorrow, either due to poverty, sickness, death the list goes on and on. Today, if you are prompted, say a prayer for not only the children that are awaiting forever families, but also the birth families of these children.

Today I praise God that He is the Father to the Fatherless and the Defender of the Widow....that His love is pure....that He sets the lonely in families....and that He is our Ancient of Days!

6 Months!

 

On Sunday, Aaron turned 6 months old. It is hard to believe that already 1/2 has passed since he was born. Our little baby boy is definitely growing up into such a big boy.

Aaron loves people! He loves being out in public and watching all that is happening around him. He is not scared to be held by other people and loves to smile back at anyone who smiles at him.

His most favorite activity is jumping...yes I think we have a very active boy on our hands! :) He also loves to put anything and everything he can get into his mouth. No teeth yet though. It is so precious to watch him explore his surroundings. When he discovers something new he gets so excited - his little hands and feet move like crazy and he lets out a joyful grunt!
Even though he likes to always be moving, he also loves when we read to him. He loves to look at the pictures and try to grab the pages.

We started rice cereal several weeks ago and he loved it! Aaron has also had bananas, avocado, and sweet potatoes. Even though he was a little suspicious about his big boy food at first, he has come to love all of the foods that we have introduced. I made squash and pears yesterday so those will be the next foods we introduce.

Aaron has such a sweet spirit. Our love for him grows daily! Happy 1/2 birthday little buddy!

It's Official!

Wow! We can't believe that this day has finally arrived! We are now officially a waiting family for a sweet baby from Ethiopia. We have been waiting for this day for over three years now. It is surreal to think that our little one has been born half a world away and we are only a few short months from being able to meet him and hold him in our arms! Jack and I made the call to our agency together this afternoon to go off hold. We had to meet at the Federal building to be fingerprinted for the second time for some of our adoption paperwork. After we were done we called our agency. We are hopeful to maybe get a referral by Christmas only because we have been on the list over a year now. We are praying our little one is home in our arms by May, when our paperwork expires!

Beautiful Day!

We have been so blessed by amazing weather today. My good friend S came over today to take some 6 month pictures of Aaron. It was so nice we ended up going outside to enjoy the afternoon and take some pictures. It is hard to believe that Thanksgiving is next week and we were outside today with no coats on. Here is a sneak peak of the pictures that S took today of Aaron.

 

 

 

 

Orphan Sunday

Waiting....waiting....waiting

For the past three years Jack and I have been in the process of adopting a baby from Ethiopia....for the past year our paperwork has been in Ethiopia and we have been on hold...for the past 5 months we have been waiting to go off of hold so that we would be eligible to receive a referral of a baby...we called our agency today to see if we could go off hold this month since our file expires in May...we were told we need to wait until next month....and so are waiting again....

4 months!

Our little stud man (as he is affectionately called by his Daddy) is already 4 months old. He has been changing so much in the last couple of weeks. He has several new tricks including the ability to roll over, blow bubbles, chew on his toes (we have a very flexible son), and pet our dog, Charly. Our sweet baby boy brings so much joy to us. Two nights ago I was holding him and walking up the stairs after baby time. Daddy was following us and when Aaron saw his Daddy he would laugh and laugh and laugh. There is nothing that brings more joy to our hearts than to hear Aaron laugh in sheer delight.

Montana Bound...

This last week our family made the long trek out to Montana to visit my family. This was our first car trip with Aaron and he did amazing! We had many highlights during our time in Big Sky Country including:
1). Precious family time.
2.) My dad had the opportunity to introduce Aaron Matthew to his congregation. What a special moment for Grandpa! We can't leave out the special moment that Grandma had introducing Aaron to her bible study group. :)
3.) Aaron had lots of snuggle time with Auntie Anna!
4.) Lunch at Sonic with Mom & Dad...mmmmmm..so good.
5.) Spa Day & Girl Time- my sister bought me a hot stone pedicure and it was wonderful. My mom and I also went to the Salon where my sister works and she did both of our hair.
6.) Picnic at Giant Springs.
7.) Time spent outside despite the crazy weather (100 degrees one day 50 degrees the next :)

I'm not sure why the first picture is upside down and I can't figure out how to fix it.

Sabbath Rest

There are many things that we would like to be more faithful with in our lives and one of them is truly making the Sabbath a day of rest so today we decided to do just that. Instead of using today as "catch-up day" Jack, Aaron and I spent the day together. We did end up running a couple of errands and were blessed with some great deals (mostly thanks to Kmart Double Coupons we were able to get $54.00 worth of items for only $2.34!!)Tonight we had a pizza party out of the deck and read to Aaron out of the book of Mark. We just finished reading the story of Jonah and now we are on to the New Testament! We concluded our Sabbath Day with a beautiful walk outside!

Baby Love

I love my little man!

The Farm

Today Jack, Aaron and I went to Grandpa & Grandpa R's Farm for lunch. We had such a wonderful time. Aaron got to see all of the sheep and meet Oreo, the rabbit. He just stared and stared at Oreo and then wasn't quite sure what he thought of him (as you can see by his sad face in the picture). We toured Grandma R's garden and even got to bring home some delicious veggies to enjoy later.

Bath Time & Park Fun!

Who would think that you would need to bundle up to go to the park at the end of August....well that is what we did tonight! We took our friend Katelyn and Aaron to the park. Aaron fell asleep on the walk to the park so slept through his first park outing!

5 1/2 weeks!

It is hard to believe that Aaron Matthew is already 5 1/2 weeks old. We have cherished each and every day with him. He is such a content baby and has brought so much joy to our lives. He loves to go on walks, be outside, listen to music, and snuggle with his daddy! Hope you enjoy the new pictures!

Aaron Matthew Keller

Born: Saturday, June 6th
8:43 pm
8lbs 6oz
22 in

32 weeks 6 days!

We had a dear friend of ours come to our house last night to take some maternity pictures and here is a sampling of what she took!!