LOVE

Ok folks! Another visit tomorrow with mom. I covet your prayers! I think since it is so close to the last one I don't feel quite so emotional about it but I know it will be still be hard.

On a positive note. Dora's speech is improving again by leaps and bounds! She is saying even more words and when I was reading a book, something like Little Quack's ABC's or something like that, I was making the letter sounds and saying the letter and she was chirping in making the letter sounds as well! Plus, I've heard her start to put two or more words together! She says something that is not "I want more" but it certainly is on it's way to becoming that and is definitely what she is TRYING to say. I'm so concerned with being able to make it out clearly, more that she's continuing to make progress. The clarity will come because the words that she knows become clearer every day.

Her other big milestone is that she is continuing to try to sing songs. The words are hardly distinguishable but like with words and phrases, it will come! I'm just so pleased that she's trying!

The other day we went to Lawrence Hall of Science and I was super impressed with something she did. I'll post a picture, but basically there were shaded circles and I asked all three girls (Cinderella, Baylee Rapier and Dora) to place circle chips onto the shaded circles and Dora whipped it out super fast and extremely accurately! I knew Cinderella and Baylee would be able to do it no problem, but I've never seen Dora do anything like that before! I was very proud of her!

She's been such a happy girl the past couple of weeks and outside of the constant grunt when she's frustrated or Cinderella's taking something from her there has been a dramatic decrease in her defiance! Praising the Lord for that!

Rachel's wedding weekend was great! Cinderella had such a great time dancing! She was just a little energizer bunny on the dance floor! She crashed super hard and was so tired when we got home that she was just crying in her sleep! I love that she could just dance the night away with Rachel and all of the family! I love how they all love her so much and how we are just all family now. And they treated Dora exactly the same! Love them! What a blessing they all are to our family. I love how through adoption our extended family is growing! My biggest prayer is that Dora's mom will see that if we adopt Dora she isn't loosing her as long as she is clean and sober. I hope she'll see how we'll just bring her into the family and she'll still be able to see Dora grow up and be a part of her life. I can imagine how scared she must be that she'd never see her daughter again and I feel for her. I just hope that she'll see how much we love her and how much we have to offer her! Last visit went really well. Praying that tomorrow will be a continuation of that! Thank you in advance for your prayers! I KNOW that your prayers directly affected the visit last week and I thank you for your contribution to this process and our family by your faithfulness in bringing us before the Father! Your prayers ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE if nothing else in the peace that surrounds me and sustains me!