2 years of special blessings

It is hard to believe that Samuel has only been a Versfeld for 2 years. He was born in our hearts in January 2009 when we started fostering him and he was officially made part of our family on 17 July 2009. Although we missed out on his first year of life, he has always been ours and we cannot imagine our life without him. He has blessed us in so many ways :)

Samuel is doing very well. His OT is constantly amazed at the weekly progress. He weighs 13kg and stands 33 inches tall - I know its 2 different measures, but we loved it because Michael weighs 10kg and stands 30 inches tall. Samuel's speech is coming along well and new words, sometimes with the funniest facial expressions is a daily occurrence.

This is one of the first photos sent to us by his foster family shortly after we left Ghana. At this stage we had no idea that our "foster love" for him was more than that - we just knew that we loved him. One could not help but fall in love with this funny face :)

The caption on this photo was "red is definitely his colour" and I have to admit it has always been one of my favourites - also still taken in a time before we knew we were going to adopt him.

These 2 were taken on Samuel's first official weekend away with his foster family. I loved Samuel in the tub, especially his feet - I have always loved his feet, he used them like hands :) His toes are always "working" - wriggling, twitching.

This photo was the clincher. When Mariette sent this to me on 1 June 2009, my reply to her was that I would have so loved to adopt him (at this stage he had a family busy with paperwork for him). We had by now decided to adopt and were busy getting home studies, etc done to submit to BH for consideration. By 4 July I was on my way to Ghana to fetch our son........God moved mountains and "Jericho walls" tumbled as prayer warriors stood in the gap. Looking back I'm still in awe of God's fingerprints all over Samuel's adoption.

One of my recent favourites. Samuel is truly a handsome little boy :)

Samuel has moments where he just walks a little way away from his sisters en brother to sit quietly on his own. This is moments when my heart cries out for orphans across the world that sit alone.
Every night, without fail, Samuel first takes off his pajama pants to put it over his head like a hat. After he has fallen asleep we put it back on. Yes, we have tried a beanie, even a bandanna as we thought he might be cold. But no, it has to be the pants of the pajamas he's wearing -pajama pants of another set out of the cupboard does not do the trick. You've got to love it !

Thank you Lord for blessing us with Samuel.

Thank you for all the small things we re-learn to enjoy and appreciate as Samuel learns.

Thank you for each new word and sentence that takes the place of a hand sign or sound of frustration.

Thank you for his health.

Thank you for his cute smile and laughter that comes from deep in his tummy.

Thank you for his unconditional love, his tight hugs and abundant kisses.