Family: Precious/Ali | myMCMlife.com

Phone Photo Friday

12/19/2014

Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: Phone Photo Friday, Family, Family: Adoption, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: cell phone photography, Phone Photo Friday | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Jason’s been traveling a lot in December (but is now home through Christmas. Yay!) So Ali and I have been enjoying lots of holiday festivities together. On Saturday we went to Cheekwood Art and Botanical Gardens to see reindeer and check out the craft activities. We spent a long time making a Christmas tree our of sticks, pipe cleaners, paper, glue and beads. The cookie decorating was quite delicious!

On Sunday our church had their big Christmas program, which means special music, candlelight service, and lots of kids dressed up in adorable outfits gorging themselves on cookies and candy canes. Alianna was quite proud of her freshly painted nails.

That evening Ali and I went to our next door neighbor Elizabeth’s house for a Latke Fest. I’m pretty sure that was the first Hanukkah party either of us had been invited to and it was great! Lots of tasty treats and nice people. I brought Elizabeth a dozen eggs to thank her for informing us and helping to wrangle our chickens when they escape our yard.

Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: crafts, Family, Family: Me, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: Christmas, fun, hanukkah, holiday, mother-daugher | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Phone Photo Friday

12/12/2014

Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: Phone Photo Friday, Family, Family: Adoption, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: cell phone photography, Phone Photo Friday | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Giving Thanks

12/10/2014

I’m playing a little blog catch up. I meant to share this photo on Thanksgiving. Every day in November leading up to the holiday we would think of something we were thankful for and write it on the chalkboard wall. It was fun to hear what Ali would come up with. She answered “trees and leaves” or “leaves” at least three times. I think it’s safe to say she had fun playing in crunchy, colorful leaves this fall. My favorite, though, was when she’d say “Mommy-Daddy-Ali love” or “Mommy-Daddy love” or any combination of our names. I’m not really sure if it’s our love for her that she was thinking of, or if it was each unique relationship dynamic. Either way, it melted my heart. She also listed “baby brother or sister” and “messy [fried] eggs.”

Here’s my little heart melter on Thanksgiving. We hosted at our house but I failed to take any photos once the gathering began.

I snapped this selfie (bumpie?) of my baby belly and a grapefruit because at 19-20 weeks, the baby was supposedly about this size. I thought that seemed crazy until I looked at the photo. OK, I guess a grapefruit would fit in there.

Leave a Comment » | Faith, Family, Family: Froggie/Isaiah, Family: Me, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: giving thanks, gratitude, holidays, thankfulness, thanksgiving | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Phone Photo Friday

12/05/2014

Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: Phone Photo Friday, Family, Family: Adoption, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: cell phone photography, Phone Photo Friday | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Phone Photo Friday

11/21/2014

I haven’t been able to get my act together to finish a post since Monday so I’m using Phone Photo Friday to share two Instagram posts from earlier this week from past of the #knittogetherbyadoption Photo-a-Day.

#knittogetherbyadoption Day 16: Quote. I have a file with lots of favorite quotes and this one caught my eye today because we keep hearing so many ignorant comments now that we’re expecting “one of our own.” We’ve had the honor of being mom and dad to six children and each one has been loved as our own and as a full member of our family. When we adopted Alianna she forever and ever became ours, fully our daughter just as if I gave birth to her. I know people don’t mean to be offensive but they need to realize their choice of words disrespects our daughter and our family and diminishes her status as our daughter, our real daughter, our own daughter.

#knittogetherbyadoption Day 17: If you really knew me… You would know that I would be just as excited about adopting again as I am about the baby in my belly. My excitement stems from the fact that we’re adding another permanent family member. And while I am enjoying my first pregnancy I also have a deep desire to adopt again. If you really knew me, you’d know that adoption wasn’t our back up plan. We chose to become foster parents as soon as God opened our eyes to the need and we made that our first path into parenthood. If you really knew me, you’d know that the temptation to step away from foster parenting is real. It would be easy to take a break, and we might. But the truth is, we don’t feel released yet. Just yesterday we heard of a child abuse incident that happened close to home and now I can’t fathom going off the call list. Until more people step up to take care of these kids in our community or until people stop hurting children, I just don’t know how I could walk away and still sleep at night.

1 Comment | Art, Art: Phone Photo Friday, Family, Family: Adoption, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: cell phone photography, Phone Photo Friday | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Brother-Sister-Friends Forever

11/17/2014

After living for three months as (foster) brother and sister in the summer of 2013, Termain and Alianna will always think of each other as brother-sister-friends it seems, and I hope it stays that way. (He was originally nicknamed Buzz Lightyear here.) I’m beyond grateful to his mom allowing us to stay a part of their lives as friends (that still feel a lot like family) over a year after they were officially reunified. A couple Saturdays ago we had the privilege of babysitting Termain for several hours. We get together every few months but this is the first time he was with us without his mom. We were all a little nervous about how he’d do, since being at our house stirs up a lot of traumatic memories from the time he was separated from his mom. Thankfully, he did great! He and Ali play so well together and their love for each other is obvious.

I just realized I never shared the photos from our last visit with them at Baby Vegas (AKA Chuck E Cheese) for his 4th birthday back in September. They wanted to do every game together.

Leave a Comment » | Family, Family: Buzz, Family: Extended Family and Friends, Family: Precious/Ali | Tagged: BFFs, brother sister, foster care, foster siblings, friends, kids, siblings | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt

Phone Photo Friday

11/14/2014

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Posted by mahlbrandt

World Adoption Day

11/11/2014

Sunday as I was skimming my Instagram I discovered that it was the first ever World Adoption Day. Everyone is encouraged to show their support of adoption and celebration of family by drawing a smiley face on your palm. Jason was out of town but Ali and I jumped into the fun. Ali was pretty excited about the smiley faces and wanted to show everyone at church that we had matching hands.