Deborah knows!

If you were mailed a copy of our most-recent newsletter, then you probably already know that we recently received word from Pastor Emmanuel in Liberia that international adoption has be re-instated! This is exciting news to us. We have been waiting to hear this since May of this year! What this means for us now is that we can actually begin the adoption process!

After the New Year, Pastor Emmanuel, who is serving as our liaison in Liberia, will begin getting the procedures and paperwork on his end in order.

I have spoken with Pastor Emmanuel in Liberia just about every day since he shared the news with us. Last night (Christmas night), while I was speaking with Pastor Emmanuel, he shared with me that Deborah is VERY excited about her adoption! This was the first news I had heard that Deborah knows about our desire to adopt her… it really takes the emotional level up a notch, knowing now that she even knows of our desire, and that she is excited about it!

Our desire is to have Deborah here by summer time, so that she can acclimate to her new environment and new family for a couple of months before having to start elementary school. This assumes that we would start Deborah in school this Fall; there is the possibility that we would want to wait one more year, as Deborah will have just turned 5 years old, & she is really small for her age.

Please pray that this process would be free of hurdles and that the adoption process would move forward without a hitch.

Thank you friends,
Josh

Just found this blog video

We just stubled across this blog video that never got posted, so here it is. It is from October 2009.

Click here to see the video

Traveling Man

We've been traveling a lot and visiting special people. Last week we took a trip to Kernersville to see Damari's grandpa, great-grandma and he met his Aunt April for the first time. While we were there we went to Hanging Rock and hiked a little. Damari slept through the whole thing, but we all had a great time!

On our way home from Kernersville, we detoured to Smithfield and Damari got to meet his great-great-grandma. She's 97 years old. I really enjoyed getting to see her hold him. Sunday we took a day trip to Landis, outside of Kannapolis. Damari got to meet his great-great-Aunt Blenda. We had a good visit with her. While we were there we realized we were just a few minutes down the road from a friend of ours so we decided to stop by and see her too. Zubecca and her daughter, Sarah have traveled with us a lot. We've been to Catalyst in Alanta and we've been to New York with them. It was good to catch up with them.

Busy boy!

Well, we have been busy! We are adjusting well and loving life with Damari! He's such a joy and blessing. He's had a busy life so far: he's spent a week in Albemarle, taken a day trip to Kernersville, spent a few nights in Atlanta, visited Daddy on a job site, and many other trips to visit family and friends!

He is definitely becoming more alert and aware of his surroundings. Its fun to watch him study different things. He loves ceiling fans; I think he's trying to figure out how they work...just like his daddy!

In the last few days he has really started to smile! He's done it some, but we didn't think it was intentional, but we got several smiles yesterday and today. He has a beautiful smile and it is definitely contagious!

These two pics are from an in home photo shoot at 4-5 days old. TJ, one of our friends, with smoot-photography.com did them. All of them are amazing, these are two of the preview ones he gave us.

Welcome, Damari Gray Robertson

Damari Gray Robertson

We would like to “officially” welcome Damari Gray Robertson into the world. Damari was born on Sunday, August 30th, 2009, at 6:26pm. He weighed in at 7lbs, 3 oz., and he was 20.25 inches in length. His hair color was brown with blond highlights, and he has bluish eyes.

His name comes from the name "Amari", which we had chosen if we had a little girl (remember, we didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl!). We had a list of names narrowed down that started with the letter “K”, and we only had one name that started with the letter “D”. As you can tell, we chose the “D” name. It's is pronouced like the old video game system name, "Atari". He shares the same middle name as his daddy.

Since “Damari” is not a common name (very difficult to find anyone else with that name), there is not a baby-name-meaning for the name Damari. Therefore, we are going to create our own baby-name-meaning!

Our lives have been very, very busy since Damari came into the world, which is why we were so late in updating the blog. However, we have been showered with love, gifts, visits, and a lot of food! Thank you so much to everyone who has helped!


(click the image to view it full-sized)


Note: if you are one of the folks who wanted to provide food, visit this link to see if any days are still available (thank you Nana for setting that up!).