Happy Adoption Day

We celebrated Hannah's one year mark of being a legal Gentry yesterday.  Hooray!  Here is a song/book that we recieved from some friends that is special to us:

So it's here's to you and three cheers to you!
Let's shout it, "Hip, hip, hip, hooray!"
For out of a world so tattered and torn,
You came to our house on that wonderful morn
And all of a sudden this family was born.
Oh, happy Adoption Day!

It's Official

All the Gentrys and our lawyer Steven Nixon

We got the official adoption decree at 10:30 this morning.  Hannah is now legally a Gentry!

What I'm Reading

Adopted for Life: by Russell D. Moore. This was my pick for book club this month. It has blessed my life and given me tremendous knowledge. It has brought me closer to my Lord in understanding my standing as an heir of Christ.

Here is a brief summary from cbd.com: The gospel of Jesus Christ — the good news that through Jesus we have been adopted as sons and daughters into God’s family — means that Christians ought to be at the forefront of the adoption of orphans in North America and around the world.

Russell D. Moore doe s not shy away from this call in Adopted for Life, a popular-level, practical manifesto for Christians to adopt children and to help equip other Christian families to do the same. He shows that adoption is not just about couples who want children — or who want more children. It is about an entire culture within the church, a culture that sees adoption as part of the Great Commission mandate and as a sign of the gospel itself.

I wish that everyone would read this book. Maybe I am too close to the topic of adoption, but everyone is touched by adoption in some way- adopting, adopted, friends, family, supporters or adopted by our Heavenly Father.

On a side note, the author is actually going to be in town this Sunday at my brother's church. I am making plans to go to church with them. What a providential blessing!

Monday feature: What I'm Reading

I am finally getting it together on this Monday. I have decided what color to paint the kitchen, taken out all the nails in the wall, spackled the holes and even did some cleaning. I am even ready to share about the most precious book I have read in a long time.

Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born by Jamie Lee Curtis is a wonderful children's book about, well, the title explains it all. It is almost a picture book- there is only one line on each page. Here is the summary from the author:

When a young girl asks her parents about the first night of her life, she wants to know every detail. Was she tiny and perfect? How did her parents feel during their first night together? Why had her mommy and daddy decided to adopt her? Funny, tender, and altogether exuberant, here is one family’s celebration of their first cherished moments together.

I have so many favorite lines: Tell me again how you held hands all the way to the hospital and when you got there you both got very quiet and felt very small. . . Tell me again about the first time you held me in your arms and called me your baby sweet. Tell me again how you cried happy tears. . . Tell me again how you carried me like a china doll all the way home and how you glared at anyone who sneezed [they were in an airport]. . .Tell me again about the first night you were my mommy and you sang the lullaby your mommy sang to you.

With our first home study visit over and our second one on the way, I have been reading lots of adoption books. Kids books, adult books, fiction, nonfiction. This is my favorite so far. And Kirst- I know you will love this book!