Some of My Favorites About Justice

Getting to watch him experience and try things that he would have never gotten to do had he stayed an orphan in Ghana…

 

(First dirt bike adventure with our friends/neighbors, The Ward’s, earlier this week – this was literally a dream come true for him)…

I love his intrigue/heart of discovery for nature…

One of my most favorites about Justice is his kind-hearted, compassionate, extremely patient, caring and selfless personality. I really believe that these attributes will make him a great teacher (or pastor) someday. I caught this in pictures when he helped JJ learn how to ride his bike without training wheels (also blogged about this here)…

And again at the end of the summer when he taught Jayla how to do a back float…

I wish you could have heard him instructing her on what to do - “chin up, belly up” - all the while encouraging her until she got the hang of it. He seriously sounded like a seasoned swim coach. There were other onlookers watching him give her impromptu ‘swimming lessons’. Within about 10 minutes of observing him helping Jayla, Jake and I had 3 different adults come up to us and comment on how kind-hearted and endearing Justice’s personality was. It was so cool because this led them to start asking questions about our family and we got to share our adoption story.

Another of my favorites about Justice is his hunger for truth. I can’t capture this in a picture, but I can continue to tell you stories that illustrate it…

Towards the end of the summer Justice asked me what our bodies would be like in heaven and if we would be able to fly (typical adventurous boy question!). I told him that the Bible says that our bodies won’t be physical in heaven which is kind of hard to picture. I said for example that we won’t have bones or flesh/skin because our bodies will be spiritual. I mentioned that we won’t be limited by space, time or gravity and we also won’t feel pain or ever get hurt or sick in heaven. I then took him through 1 Corinthians 15:35-58 where it talks about the resurrection body. We talked it through for about 10 minutes and I also showed him a video testimony of a man who had died, experienced his spiritual self leaving his physical body behind, and then being taken into the presence of God. Eventually this man was brought back to life but his details about the spiritual world were extremely biblical and vivid so I wanted Justice to hear his explanations. After our lengthy conversation I figured that I had answered his question.

Not.

A few days later Justice said, “I prayed and asked God what our bodies would be like in heaven. And He gave me a dream that showed me.”

As soon as he said it my heart skipped a beat in excitement! Because all throughout the Bible there are stories of God revealing things and speaking to people through dreams and visions. I was so excited that Justice got to experience this! Of course, I said, “And….what did He show you?!?!?!”

He responded, “Well, we are going to be white. No, not white. I mean, like, we will be able to see through our bodies.” At this point I knew he was searching for the word ‘clear’ but that he didn’t have it in his vocab. So I offered him the word and he said “yes!”. He went on to explain what he meant by clear/see through.  He said that with our heavenly bodies you would be able to take your hand and put it through someone’s middle section and your hand would come out the other side. :) And lastly he said, “The people I saw in heaven were walking around. They had legs and feet. They weren’t like ghosts that you would see on TV. But if someone saw them they would think they were a ghost, but they weren’t. They had feet.” It sounded like he was trying to say that we aren’t going to be memberless beings floating around in heaven. We are going to have bodies, but our bodies will have spiritual properties, not physical. And that was his dream. Pretty cool.

I love that when my answer wasn’t enough for him, he searched for more on his own and went to the right source - God. And I love that God is so waiting to grant more information about Himself and His kingdom to those who come to Him in childlike faith (Hebrews 11:6). ♥

At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. ~ Matthew 11:25 ~

Some of My Favorites About Jayla

Her CRAZY morning hair!

That she’ll randomly break out into a headstand, somersault or bridge anywhere, anytime!

That she reminds me so much of when I was a little girl! Like her love for kitties…

FLASHBACK: Mommy and her kitty Molly back in 1987!!

…and her fascination with ocean life and wild animals! My mom and I used to live in San Diego, so Sea World was my zoo growing up. I LOVED marine life all the way up through college, and although we live in Iowa, Jayla somehow has this in her heart too! We go to the library about once a week and each time she heads straight for the section of books about animals. Her favorites right now are learning about…

...and I'm sure you can guess her favorite movies right now too...yep, Dolphin Tale and Free Willy (FW 3 that is)! :)

Still at the top of my list of Jayla favorites is that she can hold her own among the boys!

I also love watching her imaginary play. I snuck in this video of her having a very serious conversation with her imaginary friend ‘Casey’ on the plastic phone while she made dinner! HILARIOUS! It’s very hard to hear because I had to take the video on my phone in secret so she didn’t see me….but if you turn it up full blast you might be able to hear her talking about Nana and Esi (Yaw’s parents), Jennifer and Florence, and at the end she’s telling Casey to not be late for ‘the party’! By her body language and facial expressions she could totally fool you into thinking that someone was really talking to her on the other line! :)

I giggle at how she SCREECHES at the top of her lungs whenever she gets me to pick the Old Maid!!!!

I ♥ having someone to do girly things with like hair and nails!!!!!!!!

And my FAVORITE favorite is having a little someone who wants to do everything I do. She wants to wear ‘tight’ (her word for skinny bottom) jeans like I do, she walks like I do, wants long hair like mine, has the same train of thoughts that I do, talks like I do, rolls her eyes like I do :) and tries to ‘mom’ her brothers around like I do. It’s so cute to watch her try and copy my every move. Most days I am tripping over her once or twice because she is literally trying to stay right in step with me, following me everywhere! As a mom, you just don’t quite get to experience this sort of mini-me effect with boys!

♥
 

Some of My Favorites About JJ

That he sits like this to eat at the table...

That his imagination [still] takes him into his own little world (pretending he is John Cena and reenacting WWE episodes – this is a daily game of his!).

His stencils. At school they have an art center station which they do for about 30 minutes in class (this is in addition to going to actual art class). You can use paints, markers, scissors, paste, stamps, etc. but for whatever reason JJ has gotten absolutely hooked on tracing stencils! I can just picture him sitting there concentrating so hard while he traces. Every day when he gets off the bus he can barely wait to fly in the house and show me each one that he did in class. I just love seeing how excited he gets over making these!  This picture shows 3 days worth of his stencils.  Every day he has around 10 in his take home folder! I had to tint the picture because some of the tracings were hard to see on the darker paper...

His freckles!

That he asks Daddy to work him out and put him through drills!!!! And he reminds me so much of Jake as he cruises around those cones!
 




And I just have to show you this sweet little picture that JJ drew last weekend. On Saturday morning he all of a sudden announced that he was going to draw a picture of our family! This was SO random for JJ. He has always enjoyed coloring but he never draws free-hand just for the fun of it! He sat at the table and drew away for about 30 minutes with his colored pencils (using mainly blue which is his favorite color)! They just learned how to draw stars in art class so he was pretty excited to include those in the sky.  Once he was all finished he asked me to help him spell each of our names and he wrote them in next to each of us in the picture. I love how he included Jennifer and Florence in the picture as well. My suspicion is that God is working in him and preparing his heart for their arrival, and this is the way that those workings are starting to show face. LOVE little kid artwork!!!

♥

 

Our Fall-time tradition

It’s become our family tradition to take the kids to the local orchard/pumpkin patch each fall. Although we live in Iowa, this is about the only chance we get to be on the farm scene, so it’s a different sort of fun that the kids really look forward too. We were trying to hold out on our annual trip until Jennifer and Florence come home, but it has started to get really cold here so we figured we better fit our trip in now. (And for those wondering, I hope to be able to give you a majorly exciting adoption update late next week, so keep watch for that!) Some pictures from our Orchard fun…

Feeding the goats….

Corn pool wrestling – a definite favorite!

The jumping pillow!

This tractor racing track was a new addition to the Orchard this year and quickly became JJ’s favorite. :)

The giant slide is a family fav….doesn’t it look chilly out there? It was!!!

Justice has always loved the apple sling…

He really gets into it!

After all the fun and games our last stop is always the pumpkin patch! We take a hay ride out to the field…

And then it’s down to business as we follow Daddy’s advice and look for the pumpkin that is ‘calling our name’!

 

 

Sometimes pumpkin hunting is hard work!

Justice found his!

Last year we held our first ever Sullivan Family Pumpkin Carving Contest, and this year the competitive juices and smack talk were already flying around during our time at the Orchard. We just couldn’t wait to get home and start carving!!!

This year it hit us that we didn’t have to be limited to the carving patterns that they sell at Walmart. We wanted to be a little more creative with ideas so Google came in handy for that! Although JJ and Jayla can’t quite do the actual carving part yet, they definitely were very particular about which design they picked. It took JJ over 45 minutes to finally decide his! Mommy and Daddy brought JJ and Jayla's creations to life, and Justice was able to do his all by himself. Then we uploaded our final products to Facebook for friends and family to decide the winner by votes (Justice and JJ were checking their vote tallies on Jake’s phone every 5 minutes and calling the grandmas to recruit votes)!! Here’s how they came out:

Jayla's 'Minnie Mouse'...

JJ's 'Oregon Football'...

Justice's 'Headless Horseman'...

Daddy's 'By the Cross'...

And Mommy was the Facebook vote winner with my 'I ♥ Africa' pumpkin! Whoop whoop!

Pretty fun! I’m already scheming up my carving design for next year. :)