Icing On His Face

The King on his throne!!!

I toyed with the idea of making him a cake.  

But after much thought and contemplation.... WE TOOK THE EASY WAY OUT!!

Aaron didn't care.  The cake had HIS name on it and that made it good enough for him!!

And it tasted good too...

Aaron had been studying the pile of presents ALL DAY.  So when it came time to open them we thought he would just dig right now....  Instead he wanted to know who was going to go first???  What???  When no one answered he designated his cousin Ari as the one to open the first present.... Huh??  

Funny little guy was a wee bit confused.

 At CHRISTMAS... we take turns opening our gifts.  Aaron thought his birthday was like Christmas (he asked for a Christmas tree earlier in the week) and he thought that the presents were for EVERYONE!

Oh the joy when he realized they were all for him!!!

A UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA SHIRT... Hey.. I have to make sure my son's stay loyal!!!

Opening presents is FUN!!

And the favorite gift of all... NOT the store-bought ones.  Nope.  He liked the mircro machines van that smelled like smoke!!  Yep!  I bought it on E-bay and the cigarette smell was definitely enough to knock me over.  Aaron didn't care.  He LOVES micro machines and they are perfect for his fingers to control.

Cousins.

Judah (baby) doesn't look thrilled about getting his picture taken!!

GET ME OFF THIS COUCH!!!!

Notice that he wasn't unhappy having his picture taken while chowing down on ice cream...

IT WAS A LOW-KEY (as low-key as 4 cousins in a small house can make it) BIRTHDAY PARTY.  Just right for Aaron.  He deemed it a wonderful day when we tucked his tired little body into bed that night!  

Happy Birthday little man!!

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Updates on the Prayer requests...

Please keep praying!!!!

ONE

From Lorraine this morning...

Conner had a decent night. He's sitting up watching KidSongs on the iPad right now, and he's not crying, which is a huge praise. Pray he remains content and pain-free!!! The Salmonella in his blood appears to be responding well to the antibiotic he's on--HUGE praise!!!!

TWO

From Renee this morning...

Well, good news first. Serge has worked his magic again! He was able to explain what needed to happen to the very inexperienced (and therefore excessively timid and apparently procrastinating because they didn't know what to do and feared doing the wrong thing and getting in trouble) villagers and as of right now, we have a signed approval letter from the village!!!!! Yay!!!!! We met with the Mayor and I even hugged him lol. He looked completely startled, but hey, oh well!! He was very positive, very happy that Charlie will be living with us and absolutely loved Emma :) From here on, things should flow smoothly and without issue so we can adopt all THREE of our beautiful blessings!!!!!! Praise God for a facilitator with such an extensive knowledge of the law and the ability to explain it to those who are unfamiliar with it!!!! This was an important thing to us when we researched adoption overseas- finding someone with the experience and knowledge so that if we ran into snags, they would be able to help us navigate it. We definitely are thankful that God led us to Serge and his wonderful team!!!

THREE

More from Renee...

The bad news: our substitute facilitator for Sasha shared with us this morning that as of last night late, Nikita is doing poorly. She said "not in good shape now"- still stable, but apparently they were hoping for good signs on something (testing maybe?) and it did not happen. Sasha was too upset to talk to her for long so she did not have many details. My heart continues to break for them- please keep sweet little Nikita in your prayers that God will bring healing, miraculous healing. I found out from our substitute that our facilitator bossman, Serge offered to transport Nikita from this outlying region into the capitol city  but the doctors say Nikita cannot be moved :( Please pray, Christian family.