Ending August with a special birthday.

August ended in a high note with my brother's son turning 21. From the moment we laid eyes on him, he stole our hearts and he has a very special place in our family. Our girls grew up thinking he was their older brother and missed him terribly when he moved. But believe me when I say they made up for lost time during each holiday :)
That mischievous look in Theo Jnr's eye, is definitely something he shares with his Dad. Even to this day they always have something up their sleeve when they "put their heads together".

Theo and the girls were always on some or other mission - here they are posing as agents. This was one of our first holidays after we moved to Ghana.

Another holiday photo with the girls trying to overpower Theo. Note how the girls are bundled up against the cold (we were so used to Ghana's glorious warm weather) and Theo has a short sleeve t-shirt on (he came from the UK and used to think the July weather was nice and warm)

Like father like son - both Theo 's are amazing when it comes to our boys. They accepted and loved on them right from the start. The boys having fun with the boys :)

I absolutely love this photo of the 3 generations of men in my life - they all carry the same name; despite having lived long distances apart the last few years, they have such similar personality traits that its "scary".

Whilst Ellen & I where in South Africa for some of her entrance exams, we were able to have an early birthday celebration with the family. Yep, they are father and son :) Again those mischievous looks and yep, they are quite a team :)

Thank you Lord for Theo Jnr,

Thank you Lord for the plans You have for his life;

Thank you Lord for Theo & Sharon and the way they love their son;

Thank you for grandparents who have given so much in being part of his life;

Thank you for Your hand of protection over him thus far, we pray for Your continued hand of protection over his life as he embarks on this new phase of his life;

We thank you for the blessing he has been to our entire family.

It's been 1 year already!! :)

A little over 2 years ago a baby boy was born into this family ...........

Unfortunately due to circumstances beyond their control, which included the loss of Michael's mother, they made a love decision to have this precious bundle adopted......


This pastor was one of the many people that God used in Michael's journey into our family.

This adorable little one found his way to BH and then straight into our hearts and family.

Romana & Bernard were such an integral part in the growing of our family. I truly admire their passion for what they do despite everything ........ that includes parents on adoption roller coasters & ALL the emotions and admin that goes with it. :)

Another group of people I truly admire......... they have been awesome! This photo was taken by Mariette after our adoption order was granted. I'm so sorry that in the excitement of it all I didn't get a photo of her with us because she was in court with us - she kept Samuel so quiet during the proceedings (amazing) & prayed !!

Well, what can I say - Michael is the main source of laughter in our home at the moment. He is learning to talk so he repeats everything, yep everything, we say. He keeps us on our toes because you never know what he'll repeat when :)

And then there is this look ........ he uses it often & knows that it is powerful - would you be able to say no to this cutie pie?

Then there is also the pout or kissy face...... another "weapon" he uses freely - from when he does not want to eat his veggies, to just a kiss because he wants to. He is a real little love bug :)

Michael Ayinbota Atua Versfeld - adoption date 19 August 2010
Born is our hearts long before then.

"Thank you Lord for Michael, thank you for a family that loved him enough and people that you had in place long before Michael needed them on his way into our family. Thank you Lord for the unconditional love You stirred in our family's hearts for this little boy. Thank you especially Lord for choosing us, You have blessed us beyond what we deserve."

Happy 2nd Birthday Michael!

Michael is 2 years old!!!!

I cannot believe how time has just flown by this past year. Last year this time I was in Ghana (I truly love that country :) & miss the heat and humidity & the traffic & the people & & & ......! ); I had only met Michael 2 days before and the biggest part of the adoption roller coaster ride was still ahead of us.

The biggest blessing for me though was being able to be there for his 1st birthday - George & the girls would have loved to share this day, but it was not to be......

It did not stop us though from having a good time with Michael's BH family & our "adopted" Paul family - the cake of cause a Bake Shop classic, delicious :)

This year my sister, Gretchen was there to share in the moment. She flew back with Ellen & Marina after the university entrance tests and spent about a week with us.

Auntie GiGi , as Michael calls her, with Marina and Yvonne

This photo of Ellen & Gretchen was taken at Greater Zimbabwe.

As with Samuel's birthday, we invited our friends from Jabulani to share the day with us. This amazing couple who have 6 abandoned little ones in their care are such an inspiration to us. They have a beautiful home and the little ones are most definitely no longer orphaned - they have a Mom & Dad that adore them and love on them abundantly.

Enjoying the sunshine and just being together.

This adorable little girl was the "lead singer" when we sang happy birthday. She, and the other little ones, have so much confidence and they love to sing. Michael loves all the girls, the boys are a different story :)

Michael loves a bakkie (pick up) (especially his Oupa's) and his favorite character in the movie "Cars" is Mater.

Because George could not be at home for the entire party, we decided to only cut the cake the evening. Michael had a firm grip on the knife and actually did most of the cutting himself. Another delicious cake from our friend Des - yes, we love cake :)

Hard to believe a year has passed from the first photo to this one. We are so blessed!!!!!

What a difference these two little boys have made in our lives - not only our family, but so many others lives have been touched by them.

Thank you Lord for Michael,

We know that you had a future and great plans for him long before he was knitted in his mother's womb;

Thank you that we can be part of his life; help us Lord to bring him up in Your ways;

Thank you for his smile & laughter; his unconditional "luv you".

Happy Birthday "MushaBelly"

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.

Group birthday party

Leave it to a group of fun loving friends to organise a group birthday party. After Staci left for university in February, the group decided to have a combined "better late than never" & "early bird catches the worm" birthday party when she came on holiday.

So the date was 2 July, the theme : Come as your favourite movie character. I have to say it was loads of fun getting all the costumes together.

The 5 Versies - 2 very shy cowboys :)

Our very own Toy Story.........hats yes, toys guns - a very definite NO!

Ellen as Jack Sparrow & Chloe as Zorro

Dion as Will Turner with his rival Jack Sparrow

Tam as The Joker & Marina as Mad Hatter

To me Yvonne was perfect as the Princess from Tangled......

not only does she already have half of the fab hair, she can also handle a frying pan with attitude :)

Staci as an Avatar with Tam

One of the group photos..... we also had an Abby (NCIS), Jade (Bratz), Tinkerbell, Storm (X Men), Roy Obanen (Shanghai Noon) & Indiana Jones

They had so much fun.........the next theme: come as your favourite super hero -do I see a lot of spandex & capes in their future :)

May - 18th Birthdays; Travelling & University :)

Little Women.........

Ellen and Marina turned 18 on 4 May. Yep, hard to believe these two little rascals are already 18 and preparing to leave for university next year! My Mommy heart is still trying to get around it - even today when I look at them, this is what I see :) not these two....

..... although we have to admit the smiles are still mischievous and Yvonne can testify that some days they still do "crazy" kids things :)

I think Michael is under the impression that God placed Ellen on his path to be his and only his sister. Although he is a real love bug, she is definitely his all time favorite - yes, sometimes even Mommy has to stand aside. He tolerates Ellen's attention to other siblings and gets super jealous if she even looks or attends to another baby. Ellen's gift is definitely her love for little ones. She is more involved with Samuel's therapy than her sisters as she is going to study Speech and Occupational Therapy - she wants to specifically one day work with children with special needs.

Marina is the "rough & tumble" sister. She believes the boys need to play like boys and is forever running, chasing, rolling, crawling, etc with the boys. But she is also stricter than her older sister (please note: Ellen is only 1 min older than Marina - Marina just wanted all to know:)). However her brothers and sisters know that she will always have their back - especially Samuel.

I must admit that I stand amazed that God has blessed us with 3 daughters who have an amazing relationship with each other. Despite the twins being close, Yvonne knows that they will always be there for her. To think this photo was taken just before we left for Ghana more than 7 years ago - did not expect any of them to grow up this quickly.

We also spent the last 2 weeks of May in South Africa. The "seasoned travellers" flew down, whilst George and the girls did a road trip. Both the boys absolutely love flying and are so good on the plane. Turbulence brings out the worst case of giggles in Michael, the first sign of this was when the two of us travelled in Ghana to meet his family. Once Michael starts laughing he can not stop, most neighbouring travellers find it difficult to ignore his joy. Samuel normally catches 40winks from shortly after take off till about 20min before landing, then he "reads" the airline safety brochure and their magazine - just like a grown up. The biggest blessing of the trip was that we were there for my parents wedding anniversary and my Mom's birthday.

We also had some interviews at the University of Pretoria and handed in Ellen and Marina's university applications for next year. Yep, we are the already - once again this was way more emotional for me than what I wanted to admit :( So at this stage we are looking at Ellen and Marina going down south again at the end of July to write NBT (entrance exams) and yes it will be there very first solo trip.

I know - I'm overprotective and its high time for this Mommy to let go somewhat of her "little ones" :) Whenever anxiety about their time away from home overwhelms me, I remind myself that God still has the whole world in His hands despite of what the world out there looks like. As long as the girls stand firm on the Rock of all times, and hide under His wings, they will be safe.