Sunday, December 16, 2012
Merry Christmas, Dear Family and Friends!
If you walked into our home unannounced (this in itself might be a scary prospect), you would find MESSES (huge hunks of food that Alana has thrown down from her high chair, and probably an un-flushed toilet or two), NOISE ("Give it back!....Mama, she hit me....she hit me first...Mama I got bleed..."), AFFECTION ("Mama you are such a good cooker!...Daddy, you are my best friend."), and some BUSY-NESS thrown in ("Cate, the bus is coming in 3 minutes...where are your shoes?!").
Messes, noise, affection and a little busy-ness...not only a picture of our home, but a summary of our year! Some days in 2012 have been so LONG and even hard, but I always tell myself at the end of the day, "I am living my dream! I am married to the Best Husband on the planet and I have a house full of kids." (As a side note, who knew that kids were so loud?!) As Will has been declaring boldly, "We are a FAMILY, guys! "
Let me share some highlights of our messy, noisy, wonderful year!
Troy is doing so well at work that he was promoted to Lead Project Manager. We are proud of Daddy!! He has continued to impact other daddies through leading a small group of men at our church in Bible study. I can't think of a better man to be influencing fellow daddies. One of his daddy-highlights this year has been spending a couple of hours each Saturday morning doing Daddy-Daughter and Daddy-Son dates, usually beginning with a breakfast at The Awful Waffle...um, I mean, the Waffle House.
Cate is a Kindergartner! She is a "natural" as a student and a friend. Wilson Creek Elementary has proven to be as good as its reputation, plus we just love her teachers, Ms. Betts and Mrs. Kenny. Her best school friend is our sweet little neighbor Rebecca. Every morning at 7:05 Cate meets her at the bus stop and they begin a day of fun together. Then after school all the Burwell kids, plus Rebecca and a few more, come over and climb our big tree for a hour or so. I think our record number at the front-yard-party so far was 13 kids.
Ri-Ri has come so far in the past year that i am just amazed! We just celebrated one-year since her legal adoption (you remember, it was followed by her first Burwell spanking soon after we got home from the court house!), and these days we spend a lot less time disciplining her and a lot more time just enjoying her! She is a smart girl and is soooo ready to join Cate at school, but she has 9 "long" months to wait. She does a lot of writing and drawing and water-color painting. And what a little athlete that girl is. Especially when it comes to climbing...she climbs that front yard tree so far up that all the other neighborhood kids are impressed.
Will loves it when I call him "my favorite son" as I often do. (Tonight he informed me that I am his favorite mama!) He is all boy, so one minute he is driving me crazy, and then next he is winning my heart. He loves tree-climbing too, and running and biking around the neighborhood. He loves time alone with Daddy, and Troy tries to give him lots of it...you know, "escape from the women" time! They are way-outnumbered. Also, he loved his summer soccer-camp and still wears his soccer jersey...stains, holes, and all.
Alana is almost 16 months old. She has been walking for 7 months already...since she was 9 months old! I think she just stood up and started running for her life from her rambunctious siblings. She runs, jumps, spins, eats heartily, sings, and even does a pretty decent version of the Georgia Bulldogs cheer. She has been so easy, an angel child, and just what we needed.
The hands-down highlight of my year has been "starting school" with Cate. It has been so fun to go to the bus stop twice a day and meet my neighbors! I have made some great friends. And to think that I have lived just a few houses down and never really knew them. I love eating lunch with Cate at school and then going to her class as a parent reader. I know almost all the kids' names and have really come to love her little class. And I have gotten to meet many of the parents...especially at the birthday parties; they are always a chance to make a new fellow-parent-friend. I was always such a "schoolie" myself so it just warms my heart to be BACK in school!
Being a mommy has been super hard but so good for me. I told a friend recently, "I have never sinned so much in my whole life as I have since having and adopting these kids!" My friend got a worried look on her face, like maybe she should be calling DFACS or something, that maybe I have become Crazy Mama. But all I meant is that being a parent has shown me the sin in my heart and mouth more than anything that I have ever experienced. I am often getting mad at the kids for messing up MY plans, changing MY agenda, making ME late, eating MY food, drinking MY water, waking me up from MY nap, and interrupting MY computer time. ME ME ME...it is like I think that it is all about ME. One would think that four kids would have cured me of this, but selfishness is apparently rooted way deep. I see how much I need The Lord more every day. I see how bad I am. I see how good Jesus is. I see that there is no way I would have ever earned my way to heaven. I see that I am no better than anyone else, and probably worse than a lot of people. I see my hypocrisy. You get the idea. So really, my kids are teaching me as much as i am teaching them. That has been on my mind a lot in 2012, so i thought i would share it. Probably many of you can identify!
Anyways, this just seemed like the perfect time to send that big update and tell you all what we wish we had time to tell in person, all the fun life events that our family is sharing together. the Burwells are soooo excited about Christmas around here and hope you are too! Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and we love y'all!
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Happy Campers, Happy Tears
"Happy Campers, Happy Tears"
"Happy tears" is what Troy and I call it when the kids catch us crying over something like a good movie or a celebration of an anniversary.
We have cried many happy tears this summer, mostly because of our happy children...
Happy Camper #1=Cate
Cate loved her Disney Camp (sponsored by CYT of Atlanta); she spent 6 hours a day for five days learning some of the in's and out's of drama (ha, as if she needed any help!), and then got to sing a SOLO as "Rapunzel" in the final performance.
Happy Tears=Mommy and Daddy, as we watched her with amazement, that God used us to make this child, and that she has more courage than we ever imagined, getting up in front of 200 folks to sing a solo that contained big words like "candle-making" and "ventriloquy". She was just a doll.
Happy Camper #2...Will
Will, bless him, needs something of his own, since he has to share everything else in his life with two older, bigger, bossier sisters. Enter "Soccer Camp". Last week he spent his mornings at a soccer camp at Bridgeway Church, and i was so happy to see him enjoy running, kicking, jumping, and most of all, getting to do something that Cate and Ri did not get to do!
Happy Tears.... We know that Will is still feeling the repurcussions of our adoptions last year, because (even thought he can't verbalize it) he still misses having his best friend Cate Burwell all to himself...and he probably misses having his room all to himself too! Someone recently called it a feeling of "displacement"...his place in the family, at least in his eyes, is different than what it used to be. We are still navigating these waters with him. But itt does seems like the privilege of playing soccer last week helped him to know how much we love him and are proud of him, as we stood on the sidelines to cheer him on and then took him to a "fancy" lunch at Mickey D's!
Happy Camper #3...Rihanna
While Cate was at Disney Camp, Ri went to VeggieTales camp, also a drama camp sponsored by CYT. She spent every morning for a week in a group of 12 preschoolers, learning how to sing and dance to 5 Veggie Tales songs, with some reading and playing and crafts thrown in. She too got to perform for a crowd of proud parents and friends on the last day of camp.
Happy Tears...I mean, honestly, we were just glad that she did not get scared and run off the stage! but she did GREAT...sang, smiled, motioned...not all the time, but most of it. I can remember us sitting there last year watching Cate do the same performance, with Ri between us (so that she did not run off in the middle of it or start to pitch a fit...this was when she had only been with us for 2 months!)...i don't know that i would have thought she would have come this far yet. Ah, to see her up on that stage was an amazing moment for me, of worshiping the Lord who has done these things in her, for her, and for us!
Happy Camper #4..Alana! Well, "camper" may be stretching it a bit, but she and Ri did have a huge thing happen for them in May: they were given the sign and seal of the Covenant of Grace (as we Presbyterians say) by being baptized. Actually she had no idea what that water was all about...but isn't that just like us?....We are so clueless and are not asking for the Lord at all, and then he just comes along and takes us to be his own. Really, it is just like adoption. The girls were baptized in our church's chapel, and every time we have walked past it this summer, Ri whispers to me, "That is the room where we got adopted!" Now, what she means is, the room where they got baptized. But i love it that she sees that event as her adoption. As Cate told her a few weeks ago, "Rihanna, you are ALWAYS going to be a Burwell, because we adopted you AND baptized you!"
happy tears...one HUGE highlight of the baptisms was that they were done by one of our favorite pastors in the world, David McNeely. We admire David and his awesome wife Judith soooo much because they have adopted 6 little boys over the past 10 years. They too have an "ebony and ivory" family. We have watched them and been inspired. Anyways, because David is newly ordained, our girls got to be the first babies that he ever baptized! Now really, how cool is that, that his first baptism to perform was on two African-American adopted little girls?!
"Happy tears" is what Troy and I call it when the kids catch us crying over something like a good movie or a celebration of an anniversary.
We have cried many happy tears this summer, mostly because of our happy children...
Happy Camper #1=Cate
Cate loved her Disney Camp (sponsored by CYT of Atlanta); she spent 6 hours a day for five days learning some of the in's and out's of drama (ha, as if she needed any help!), and then got to sing a SOLO as "Rapunzel" in the final performance.
Happy Tears=Mommy and Daddy, as we watched her with amazement, that God used us to make this child, and that she has more courage than we ever imagined, getting up in front of 200 folks to sing a solo that contained big words like "candle-making" and "ventriloquy". She was just a doll.
Happy Camper #2...Will
Will, bless him, needs something of his own, since he has to share everything else in his life with two older, bigger, bossier sisters. Enter "Soccer Camp". Last week he spent his mornings at a soccer camp at Bridgeway Church, and i was so happy to see him enjoy running, kicking, jumping, and most of all, getting to do something that Cate and Ri did not get to do!
Happy Tears.... We know that Will is still feeling the repurcussions of our adoptions last year, because (even thought he can't verbalize it) he still misses having his best friend Cate Burwell all to himself...and he probably misses having his room all to himself too! Someone recently called it a feeling of "displacement"...his place in the family, at least in his eyes, is different than what it used to be. We are still navigating these waters with him. But itt does seems like the privilege of playing soccer last week helped him to know how much we love him and are proud of him, as we stood on the sidelines to cheer him on and then took him to a "fancy" lunch at Mickey D's!
Happy Camper #3...Rihanna
While Cate was at Disney Camp, Ri went to VeggieTales camp, also a drama camp sponsored by CYT. She spent every morning for a week in a group of 12 preschoolers, learning how to sing and dance to 5 Veggie Tales songs, with some reading and playing and crafts thrown in. She too got to perform for a crowd of proud parents and friends on the last day of camp.
Happy Tears...I mean, honestly, we were just glad that she did not get scared and run off the stage! but she did GREAT...sang, smiled, motioned...not all the time, but most of it. I can remember us sitting there last year watching Cate do the same performance, with Ri between us (so that she did not run off in the middle of it or start to pitch a fit...this was when she had only been with us for 2 months!)...i don't know that i would have thought she would have come this far yet. Ah, to see her up on that stage was an amazing moment for me, of worshiping the Lord who has done these things in her, for her, and for us!
Happy Camper #4..Alana! Well, "camper" may be stretching it a bit, but she and Ri did have a huge thing happen for them in May: they were given the sign and seal of the Covenant of Grace (as we Presbyterians say) by being baptized. Actually she had no idea what that water was all about...but isn't that just like us?....We are so clueless and are not asking for the Lord at all, and then he just comes along and takes us to be his own. Really, it is just like adoption. The girls were baptized in our church's chapel, and every time we have walked past it this summer, Ri whispers to me, "That is the room where we got adopted!" Now, what she means is, the room where they got baptized. But i love it that she sees that event as her adoption. As Cate told her a few weeks ago, "Rihanna, you are ALWAYS going to be a Burwell, because we adopted you AND baptized you!"
happy tears...one HUGE highlight of the baptisms was that they were done by one of our favorite pastors in the world, David McNeely. We admire David and his awesome wife Judith soooo much because they have adopted 6 little boys over the past 10 years. They too have an "ebony and ivory" family. We have watched them and been inspired. Anyways, because David is newly ordained, our girls got to be the first babies that he ever baptized! Now really, how cool is that, that his first baptism to perform was on two African-American adopted little girls?!
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Happy Birthday Dear Ri-Ri!
Happy Birthday Dear Ri-Ri!
April 11 was a great day for the Burwells. it was Rihanna's fourth birthday, which is special enough, but it was also her first birthday as a Bird-a-well, and so we felt especially happy!
Around our house, we turn birth-days into birthday week, and we celebrate the Birthday Girl (or Boy, as the case may be) for several days. In hindsight, this may not be the best idea we ever had, considering the amount of creativity and money that is required, but oh well, the kids love it!
Over the course of Rihanna's birthday week, we had all kinds of fun. We had an afternoon at Monkey Joe's, a pizza dinner with the family, a cupcake feast, a trip to Athens for the UGA spring football game, and a big party at Ocee Park, complete with lots of friends and a beautiful and dee-lish Dora birthday cake.
Rihanna felt so loved; we could see it in her eyes! (and in her behavior!) She had such fun opening all of her gifts and remembering who had come to her party.
This week marks one year since our caseworker called us and said, "Okay, we have the green light; Rihanna is moving in to the Burwell family." I cannot believe the difference that a year has made in this little girl. She is a "new" child. She was fatherless, and God kept his promise to be a "Father to the fatherless". He has given her a family and a home and food and a brother and two sisters. He has brought her into our family, and thus (as we say at our church), into the "covenant of grace". She has learned who God is, who Jesus is. She knows so many songs and Bible verses about the Lord. She often just breaks into song, praising God!
Today I sneaked in her room during rest time, just to check on her. She was sitting on her bed, with two dolls in her lap, one Caucasian and one African-american. Her doll-daughters were fighting and she was trying to help them to be kind and forgive each other. She was teaching them how to say, "I'm sorry; will you forgive me?" Ah, I just wanted to CRY as I thought about how far she had come. All credit to the Lord and MUCH thanks to so many of you who have come alongside of us this year to help us. We could not have done it without Him or you.
April 11 was a great day for the Burwells. it was Rihanna's fourth birthday, which is special enough, but it was also her first birthday as a Bird-a-well, and so we felt especially happy!
Around our house, we turn birth-days into birthday week, and we celebrate the Birthday Girl (or Boy, as the case may be) for several days. In hindsight, this may not be the best idea we ever had, considering the amount of creativity and money that is required, but oh well, the kids love it!
Over the course of Rihanna's birthday week, we had all kinds of fun. We had an afternoon at Monkey Joe's, a pizza dinner with the family, a cupcake feast, a trip to Athens for the UGA spring football game, and a big party at Ocee Park, complete with lots of friends and a beautiful and dee-lish Dora birthday cake.
Rihanna felt so loved; we could see it in her eyes! (and in her behavior!) She had such fun opening all of her gifts and remembering who had come to her party.
This week marks one year since our caseworker called us and said, "Okay, we have the green light; Rihanna is moving in to the Burwell family." I cannot believe the difference that a year has made in this little girl. She is a "new" child. She was fatherless, and God kept his promise to be a "Father to the fatherless". He has given her a family and a home and food and a brother and two sisters. He has brought her into our family, and thus (as we say at our church), into the "covenant of grace". She has learned who God is, who Jesus is. She knows so many songs and Bible verses about the Lord. She often just breaks into song, praising God!
Today I sneaked in her room during rest time, just to check on her. She was sitting on her bed, with two dolls in her lap, one Caucasian and one African-american. Her doll-daughters were fighting and she was trying to help them to be kind and forgive each other. She was teaching them how to say, "I'm sorry; will you forgive me?" Ah, I just wanted to CRY as I thought about how far she had come. All credit to the Lord and MUCH thanks to so many of you who have come alongside of us this year to help us. We could not have done it without Him or you.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
The Girls are Official "Bird-a-wells" now
Ri calls herself "Rihanna Bird-a-well", no matter how many times we have
corrected her. (Secretly I love how she says it...it always cracks me up!) We are so excited that both Ri and Alana are officially, legally, and forever BURWELLS! We had Rihanna's finalization in December, and Alana's was Tuesday. (Finalization is adoption-ese for: all the background checks, home studies, paperwork and check-writing are FINALLY over and you FINALLY are Mom and Dad, pronounced to be so by the state of Georgia!)
Finalization day is kind of like raising four children....a little bit stressful but a lot of fun.
Stressful. Really, much of the stress is probably due to the fact that we have to finalize at the Fulton County Courthouse, which happens to be about 100 miles from our house (Not really....but it feels like it.). After 90 miles of HOV lanes (again, not really) we find Central Avenue. Then find a parking spot in a packed garage. Then find our way out of said garage and to one of the courthouse entrances. Then an extensive security check. (Even Alana was checked. Really.)
Then up to the 7th floor to wait outside the judge's court room. Eventually, we are called into the judge's "chambers", meet the Honorable Judge, and I silently pray
that I don't say anything stupid. You know, anything that might make the Judge
say, "Hmmm...are you sure that you are fit to adopt this baby?" We are
sworn in, with raised right hand and everything! We are asked a bunch of
simple questions, but with your lawyer and the Honorable Judge watching, it
is hard to remember even your address! The Judge listens, asks a few questions,
and then finally finally finally the moment we have been waiting for, for
months and months!...She signs the papers and Alana is ours, ours, ours
forever!
Fun. We all stand and pose for the must-have-picture-with-the-Judge. Then
we walk out, lighter than air, because nobody took that baby away and now
she is ours.
We head to the bakery for a cake, because my goodness, I don't know how to celebrate anything without a yummy cake! I find one that is light on cake, heavy on icing, and I know this is the one we must have.
We get home, devour our slaw dogs (yes, I am quite the cook), and then light a
candle for the cake. We sing "happy adoption day" to Alana, and then Will blows out the candle. (that is code for, spits on the cake; ah, little boys!) As I feast on my third piece, I think, What fun to celebrate this baby girl in our family forever. I see God's hand all over it...this baby girl whose conception was a "mistake", a one-night stand gone wrong...but God had her in His heart and in His Design for the Bird-a-wells. Our Angel Baby.
Life in the "new" Bird-a-well house: crowded, noisy, messy, stressful!...but beautiful, wonderful, and fun!
P.S. One more story for you about how we welcomed Ri to the family after her December finalization.... In Georgia, the law states that as long as you are guardian (and not parent) to a child, you are not allowed to spank him or her. Since May, we have punished her with things like time-out and sweet probation (which is actually a VERY effective consequence in the Burwell family). So, on the way home from the courthouse with Rihanna, we reminded her how much we love her and that God had brought her to our family and now--officially-- she was staying forever, and then we broke the bad news to her: "Now that you are forever and ever a Burwell child, you are going to be punished like a Burwell child. You know how Cate and Will get spankings when they disobey? Well now, when you disobey, you will get a spanking."
As much as we did not want to spank her that very evening, we suspected that we may have to. Sure enough, within 30 minutes of arriving back home, as we had a little family celebration dinner in Ri's honor, she disobeyed. Of spanking...she was not a fan. A few days (and a few spankings) later, she declared, "I don't want to be spanked like a Burwell child anymore! I just want to be punished!" It's not always easy being a Bird-a-well.
corrected her. (Secretly I love how she says it...it always cracks me up!) We are so excited that both Ri and Alana are officially, legally, and forever BURWELLS! We had Rihanna's finalization in December, and Alana's was Tuesday. (Finalization is adoption-ese for: all the background checks, home studies, paperwork and check-writing are FINALLY over and you FINALLY are Mom and Dad, pronounced to be so by the state of Georgia!)
Finalization day is kind of like raising four children....a little bit stressful but a lot of fun.
Stressful. Really, much of the stress is probably due to the fact that we have to finalize at the Fulton County Courthouse, which happens to be about 100 miles from our house (Not really....but it feels like it.). After 90 miles of HOV lanes (again, not really) we find Central Avenue. Then find a parking spot in a packed garage. Then find our way out of said garage and to one of the courthouse entrances. Then an extensive security check. (Even Alana was checked. Really.)
Then up to the 7th floor to wait outside the judge's court room. Eventually, we are called into the judge's "chambers", meet the Honorable Judge, and I silently pray
that I don't say anything stupid. You know, anything that might make the Judge
say, "Hmmm...are you sure that you are fit to adopt this baby?" We are
sworn in, with raised right hand and everything! We are asked a bunch of
simple questions, but with your lawyer and the Honorable Judge watching, it
is hard to remember even your address! The Judge listens, asks a few questions,
and then finally finally finally the moment we have been waiting for, for
months and months!...She signs the papers and Alana is ours, ours, ours
forever!
Fun. We all stand and pose for the must-have-picture-with-the-Judge. Then
we walk out, lighter than air, because nobody took that baby away and now
she is ours.
We head to the bakery for a cake, because my goodness, I don't know how to celebrate anything without a yummy cake! I find one that is light on cake, heavy on icing, and I know this is the one we must have.
We get home, devour our slaw dogs (yes, I am quite the cook), and then light a
candle for the cake. We sing "happy adoption day" to Alana, and then Will blows out the candle. (that is code for, spits on the cake; ah, little boys!) As I feast on my third piece, I think, What fun to celebrate this baby girl in our family forever. I see God's hand all over it...this baby girl whose conception was a "mistake", a one-night stand gone wrong...but God had her in His heart and in His Design for the Bird-a-wells. Our Angel Baby.
Life in the "new" Bird-a-well house: crowded, noisy, messy, stressful!...but beautiful, wonderful, and fun!
P.S. One more story for you about how we welcomed Ri to the family after her December finalization.... In Georgia, the law states that as long as you are guardian (and not parent) to a child, you are not allowed to spank him or her. Since May, we have punished her with things like time-out and sweet probation (which is actually a VERY effective consequence in the Burwell family). So, on the way home from the courthouse with Rihanna, we reminded her how much we love her and that God had brought her to our family and now--officially-- she was staying forever, and then we broke the bad news to her: "Now that you are forever and ever a Burwell child, you are going to be punished like a Burwell child. You know how Cate and Will get spankings when they disobey? Well now, when you disobey, you will get a spanking."
As much as we did not want to spank her that very evening, we suspected that we may have to. Sure enough, within 30 minutes of arriving back home, as we had a little family celebration dinner in Ri's honor, she disobeyed. Of spanking...she was not a fan. A few days (and a few spankings) later, she declared, "I don't want to be spanked like a Burwell child anymore! I just want to be punished!" It's not always easy being a Bird-a-well.
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