More like a loaf, than a bun in the oven.

We are pregnant.
Sike.
Just wanted to get you excited that we are expecting.
OK, in the adoption world that we are in, being "with child", pregnant on paper or knowing that you have a child growing in your heart are all the same.

God builds families in many different ways and the "way" a child is brought to your home is usually amazing, but the end result is just a beautiful family.
Let's all agree that one way is not better than another.
Different, but all remarkable.

After reading my friends post titled Decision 2008 International Adoption, I was compelled to honestly share our unfolding story.

So- we are announcing that our family is growing!
But in a very wild way.
And it has been prayed about for many months and the direction is clear.
So we are following His lead unless that door closes.
But we hope it stays open until the perfect child joins our family.

here goes...

First, we sought international adoption. Our agency Dillon gave us a list of country programs to review and pray over. None were a right fit.

Second, we sought out other agencies that might have other international country programs available. After looking through the packets and countries, it wasn't a right fit either.

Third, we felt like maybe this was the time to have biological children. We talked through this and we were both on the same page. It was just not a right fit, our hearts were elsewhere.

Fourth, we thought about domestic adoption. It took some time for our hearts to wrap around this idea. But it did seem to fit, so we went looking for more information.

Fifth, we decided on working with DHS (Department of Human Services). Applying for our state's adoption program (not the foster program). Children are available whose parents right have been terminated due to various factors.

Sixth, we told our parents and children all about our decision. Praise God for our support team.

Seventh, We started working on all our paperwork, medical updates, homestudy, fingerprints and will be starting the 35 hours of required classes in September. But amazingly, it is all free.
I mean what!?

Eighth, we had to tell DHS about our hearts desire. And here is where it gets WILD and EXCITING... we are applying for multi-race (not sure yet, but Asian, Hispanic, etc.) and a child who is 5-6 year of age. We believe have an older child waiting to join our family.

Avi Joy asked, "Will my older sister have a face like yours or a face like mine mama?" Wow, honestly, she never ceases to amaze me.
And little man will get to be the baby for a while longer...
A convicting scripture that was brought to my mind was Psalm 68:5,
"A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling."
It does not say...
A father to the infant fatherless.
Or a father to the perfect fatherless.
It was revealed to me that God is in the business of providing families for ALL fatherless children. Unfortunately it does not come to pass for all children, but we have to TRUST that our God knows what He is doing and it will be a blessing to have an older child join our family.

We will keep you updated about how life unfolds...
In the meantime we will keep praying and dreaming.

Adam, Natasha, Avi Joy and Nehemiah

First iHeartFaces

I have yet to enter an iHeartFaces contest, but when I saw it was "At the Beach" this week I could not resist.

I LOVE all our beach pictures from Sept 08 when Avi Joy was a flower girl in my cousin's wedding in FL. Barefoot wedding at sunset, beyond beautiful!

All my true favorites were of her back though- she was watching the waves, but those cannot be entered in iHeartFaces. The faces must be shown in some way.

I am so wishing we would have invested in our new camera a bit earlier, but she is the one who makes all our pictures cute, so I will let that go!

Wishing we were at the beach!
Natasha

The Finish Line

We had many fun things planned for the summer and we just crossed the finish line!
Last week we worked Dillon Internationals final heritage camp.
We loved Vietnam, India and China camp and Korea was no exception.
All the children (17 in our class) were precious and I always love meeting colorful families & hearing their stories.
This little guy's name is Jake. I have had him in my class for 3 years now. He is a doll baby! His momma also has 3 other kids (4 within 4 years, but the first two and last two are less than a year apart- all special needs adoptions). Iheartjake!
Six moms and 13 kids headed over to the Lydens house for a "pool" party. The set-up was perfect, two small pools with slides into them. The kids had a great and safe time.
The youngest little one there was 1 month old, Trinity.
Donna did a great job taking all the pics!

She enjoyed using our new camera to capture all the children and I enjoyed actually being in a pic with my child! Nehemiah's tee-shirt we bought at the market in Can Tho and my VN hat I got from a street vendor in HCMC.

At the end of the pool party we all devoured our shark cupcakes. Soooo cute and easy!

This scripture is for my sweet girlfriend Kristin...

"In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation."

Psalm 5:2-3
The Perryman Family

Sweet Reunion

And here is our story...
Two families were called by the Lord to adopt children.
During the wait, the two mom's became great friends.

After waiting a LONG time, they both traveled within a few weeks of each other to this beautiful center on the other side of the world.
Inside, and up a winding staircase were two cribs, holding two handsome boys.
They were best friends and shared everything from clothes to nannies.
Then one day...
This son met his forever mommy.
Then the other son met his forever mommy too.
And even though the boys had a special bond, the mothers had yet to meet in person.

Sweet Reunion on the horizon...
Then we got the greatest call that the wonderful Senior family was coming for a visit!
We were so excited to meet Tracy, Levi, Rachel (daughter- 16) and Ariana (niece- 13).
My heart was filled with joy when they arrived. We hugged and swapped boys! Here is our first meeting, 6 months post adoption.
The boys are SO much alike! They are "all boy" and have the same good and bad habits : )
We enjoyed playing at the park one morning then we were off to see the sights of T-town.
We had the Homan family over for a homemade dinner.
And we took a tour of the Dillon International office.
Jynger and Mary Anne helped bring our kiddo's home. They worked tirelessly on our behalf and encouraged us through the whole process.
It had been a long while since I had been around teenagers. And I have to say I LOVED it. These young ladies were awesome. I loved doing their hair, painting nails and letting them dress up in my wedding dress! They were beyond polite, gracious and I caught Ariana having doing her devotional one morning- wow, what a role model! xoxox- we loved you girls.

"Oil and perfume rejoice the heart; so does the sweetness of a friend's counsel that comes from the heart." Proverbs 27:9

The Perryman's

Creative Kids ART CAMP!

In the summer of 2005 I started teaching little artists at "Creative Kids Art Camp." This idea originally came as a fund-raiser during Avi Joy's adoption and since I was teaching 1,000 students, finding children to attend was not an issue.
It was a huge blessing to us that first summer and we have enjoyed it in the summers following.

This year the idea was a bit different. Since I am away from the school setting, finding students to attend is challenging. So instead of focusing on K-5 grade and having it last three days, we decided on having a camp for kids ages 2-5, with their moms, for three hours.

Overall it was a success! We had 14 children, 4 babies (9 moms), and completed seven projects.

The artists learned about each project at "demonstration time."
Artists: Hudson, Pace, Caedmon, Kamryn, Karsyn, Jonathan, Claire, Linley, Avi Joy, Joshua, Bethany, Jadyn, Sarah and Andrew.

Here I am teaching... we held it at our house, it's normally at a community center. I only charged for supplies (because we were testing it out) so we had no $$ to rent a facility.
Project #1- Clay Cupcakes (made over baby food jars)
Painting the cupcakes
What wonderful painting!
Very artsy!
Project #2- Handprint trees
Project #3- Winter scene (painted snow over brown landscape)
Project #4- Cave painting
Project #5- Asian Lanterns
Project #6- Bless you (trace oval, trace hand- glue tissue between them) Break for Lunch
Project #7- Cookie (stir up colored icing and decorate the tee-shirt cookie)
Thank you Creative Mama's for allowing your kids to attend Art Camp.
Go Get Messy!
Natasha

And he's off...

Late Wed night (July 15th) Nehemiah took his first steps! He was very proud of his-little-self!
As of now, the walking position looks like this: arms up, huge grin and literally, baby steps.

Watching her daddy mow the lawn when she should have been sleeping.
(But seriously cute)
This week we caught up with some old friends, the Butefish family. We enjoyed a p.j. breakfast of "Biscuits with Chocolate Gravy!"
We had the joy of watching the Homan kiddos while they went out house hunting. They brought over Lucy's magnifying glass. We had fun...
Sarah

Andrew

Avi Joy

Nehemiah

"The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be God, the Rock, my Savior!"
2 Samuel 22:47

The Perryman Family

In the heat of the day...

In the heat of the day you will find our kiddo's not wearing much. We are a "free" family that is for sure. We have some peeps in our life that do not like us posting naked-ish photos, but this photo was just too cute not to share. Avi Joy was laying on the bar as we were cooking and cleaning. She is a doll I must say.
These two pictures I took this week are my new favorites.
And here we were checking on our dog. I love everything about this picture. The light, her curls, her expression. Love.
We then headed off to teach at Dillon's China Camp. Avi Joy had a great time playing with her friend Abby.

The crew playing house.

Happy Birthday Drew! We had big fun at Drew's 2nd birthday party at a park in T-town. It was very colorful (the way it should be!) as children born in Korea, China, Ukraine, India and Vietnam were all represented.

It is amazing how women can come together and instantly "get" each other. ALL of it. The journey, the issues, the passion, the beauty of the international adoption world.

This is his "all boy" look. Hot, sweaty and handsome. Someday teenage girls will be thinking this about him when he is 14 years old and I will want to scream. But at almost 14 months, its fine.

Heard a great quote today,

"Majority Rule doesn't apply to the Kingdom of God."

Mmmmm, so true.

Blessings!

Adam, Natasha, Avi Joy and Nehemiah

internationalblend

Love My Neighbors!

We had a great afternoon with our neighborhood kiddos. Avi Joy truly loves Lexi, Sungbum and Jiho. When we came outside to play, the older kids had set-up a 25 cent Gatorade stand. They ran door to door asking people to come over. The cop across the street was happy to hand over a dollar! The kids actually said they were rich.
My favorite picture of the afternoon. Lexi and Sungbum. She recently told me that she had a boyfriend. When I asked who it was, her direct quote was... "Well, I have two boyfriends, both Sungbum and Jiho!"
Then we headed in for dinner and got ready for bed. When I told Nehemiah it was time to get ready, this was the sweet face I saw in the mirror. Good thing he is precious. He was hard today... teething and "little procedure" stuff.
Avi Joy joined us and they had a scream-off before brushing their teeth.
What I learned today: The scripture, "God's mercies are new every morning," really applies all day. My morning was great, but the day was trying. And as I walked through the day I could actually 'see' new mercies flowing into our lives!

The Perryman Family
internationalblend