Catching up on more than a year of Smithsoup stirrings

LIFE. So precious, so full and so busy! I have missed blogging so badly but life has taken so much of my time that blogging my thoughts has simply gotten away from me in this last year .Last year  saw a failed attempt at a disrupted adoption - readoption,  and a lot of heart ache about it. A lot of things did not happen as they should have, the adoption community gossip had some things to say about it,I read enough to know I had to stop reading:lots to read and interpret depending upon who you knew for real and whose words you read because they were there to read...in the end we spent over 6 months preparing for an adoption that fell apart on every level  and the girl who was to be our Zipporah is with a different family, still called Naomi, and as I stay in touch with her true forever mom, I know she is  is doing very well.She lived with us for 6 weeks and the good bye was more painful than I can describe. When you are 10, going on 11 and life has already dealt you a pretty crummy hand, you don't think the family who came across the country to visit you three times and who brought you out of a mental facility into their home, calling it YOUR HOME is going to send you back to the respite family who had no plans to keep you, much less that they are going to give you to and yet another family while the original adoptive family disappears from sight.....regardless of how it looks to anyone , we grieve and she is in our thoughts and prayers  often!!
LIFE . Generations go on.......my grand daughter Emily who had a miscarriage earlier got pregnant again and blessed the family and the world with a wonderful son Bradley. WHAT A PRECIOUS TREAT it was when my  son , home from Afghanistan for two weeks, flew me out to spend 5 days with them.  YES!!!!!  I am a GREAT GRAND MAMMA......... "Great GiGi"!
LIFE,  so precious ...my mom had a massive heart attack in August and after 5 days in ICU , on day 6 which was a Sunday,August 24, early in the morning she went Home. I was with her, I'd been with her almost non stop from that Wednesday night when I got "the call" and rushed to the hospital until she went Home. Mom's only sibling, my aunt Joan was able to get to Stillwater pretty quickly. I'm so glad that my aunt and uncle had been here to visit in June and so so so so glad they were able  get here when  my mom was still alert and able to communicate. My bother Len and his wife Cheryl were able to get here and spend some time with mom before she left us as well. Everyone else was in different places when I ended my little coffee break in the waiting room. Dear friend and church elder and my  grafted in Big Brother, Vic had come to the hospital to check on us and to pray with mom and me. He left to get ready for church and I returned to mom's side  and found her needing her mouth cleaned,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,admittedly my least favorite nursing requirement/duty  ever, but I didn't give that a thought until  later.................my mom needed her mouth cleaned. I moved the oxygen mask aside and  as I cleaned the frothy saliva from her mouth, she heaved a few shallow breaths then  breathed her last earthly breath and went Home.  She was 85 1/2 and knew she was ready for this next step. I miss her way more than I thought I possibly could. She very explicitly asked for me to scatter her ashes in my garden under some new trees so that's where her earthly body is: beneath crepe myrtle, lilac and fig trees.

SO.......................I was working on this post and it never got completed!!!  Those pregnancies have resulted in three wonderful beautiful baby boys, Esther has Logan  James, Malachi has Enoch Leng, Caleb has Christian Titus, and in about two weeks, Jael will give birth to a daughter Macy Grace !!!
This blog is terribly out dated, I know;  I need a major face lift and new photos...desperately!
Our Daniel has been home for more than 3 years and while we really thought that we were done thinking about adoption, God had some other plans. In June this year as we planned our first family vacation EVER that didn't involve adoption or a funeral , God stirred in my heart the photo of a 13 1/2 year old boy in China. God stirred Charlie's heart as well and a whole new adoption chapter of our lives began! His name is Meng Meng , but Americans and Irish folks who have gone to China and have spent time with him call him Mathew. He ages out and becomes ineligible for adoption on his 14h birthday..............September 12, 2013 but trustfully we will be able to complete  our adoption process by that date. We are "close" ...sort of....August 2, tomorrow, we will go to have our finger prints done at USCIS ( aka immigration) and we have been promised by our Congressman and 2 USCIS agents that our application will be expedited very quickly to facilitate getting Matthew home.
He knows about us. He is very excited. He told visitors last week that he didn't think anyone would adopt  HIM.  But the orphanage staff have had to temper his excitement with .......t i m e.............. He also knows that if we can not get all the paperwork done in time, no matter how much we want him and how much he wants to be adopted and be part of Smithsoup, it  can not happen if it does not happen before his birthday. Can you imagine thinking that the very course of your life has to change on your FOURTEENTH birthday?
 Please pray for us as we pursue the adoption process as diligently as we possibly can?  Please pray for Meng Meng as he faces a future which will go one of two very different directions? Please pray that the remainder of the needed funds are there to pay the necessary fees, travel expenses and final adoption costs?  Matthew has a fund at Reece's Rainbow, a special needs adoption advocacy group website, and they have a Family Support Program as well to help adopting families get the word out about fund raising efforts as well as a designated fund into which people can donate. That link is  http://reecesrainbow.org/sponsorsmith-8.    
We will be doing some fund raising immediately, so watch for news. At this moment I am a tad distracted because my mother in law whom we visited in Michigan in June, began to show symptoms of illness above her current medical issues, and was hospitalized and her condition has expanded to include pneumonia as I understand it. She's going to be 88 in November.
SO...................Smithsoup continues to simmer, sometimes to boil a bit, but it never grows cold! God continues to "stir" , to bless, to lead, to guide and to teach;  we are eternally humbly grateful to be in His service!