Saturday, December 22, 2012

Merry Christmas

December 22nd... Christmas is just a few days away. A day filled with family, love, good food, presents and most importantly a special time to remember all that God has done for us through the birth of His Son. Christmas has always been my favorite holiday - I love everything about Christmas! One of my favorite Christmas traditions has been sending out our annual Christmas card and letter... well, if you're reading this - this is it! I had the best intentions, actually, probably too much intention! I had our Christmas picture all planned in my head from about July... the problem is that our picture involved having a photograph of Makenna to include. Over the past six weeks or so, I kept putting off taking pictures of the kids for the card - hoping that we would get a picture of our newest daughter to include. Here I sit with three days to go knowing that I will not see her face until 2013 - we received an email that our adoption agency is virtually closed until January 2nd. It's sad to know that we will continue to wait, but in spite of our sadness, we are finding joy in the Christmas season and excitement to share these days with Megan and Matthew - this is our last Christmas as a family of four. Next year there will be another set of feet running through our house and another pile of gifts under the three. This year, our family of four will celebrate the Christmas season in great anticipation of all the good things that God has planned for us!



Every year in our Christmas card I include a letter updating our family and friends about what's been going on in the Benner household over the past twelve months. So, after giving it some thought, I thought what better way to continue this tradition that writing it on our blog... here goes!

Christmas 2012

This has been a busy year for our family, so busy it's hard to believe that it's almost over! We had lots of fun and special times together. Some things don't really change from year to year, but there's always something new going on in this house! In March, we welcomed a new four-legged friend to our home! Dasher came to us as a rescue that our friends were fostering - he arrived as a scared pup who didn't trust many people. We don't know much about the first 6-8 months of his life, but it's amazing what some love and care will do. Dasher is now about a year and a half - he is loving and affectionate. He has brought new life to our Golden Retriever, Chase. So much new life that Chase lost 15 lbs. thanks to the wrestling matches with Dasher.


In April, God began speaking to our hearts and called our family to be obedient by adopting one of His children. After much prayer and research, we knew that God was preparing our daughter in China! We jumped right into paperwork, meetings, more paperwork and fundraising! If you follow our blog, you know the journey we have been traveling (if you don't read our blog regularly - you have some catching up to do!). Over the past eight months, we have been amazed by the outpouring of love and support to our family. We have made new friends and deepened other friendships through the common bond of adoption. The adoption community is truly an amazing group, and we are blessed to be a part of it!

The spring brought a new season of baseball (one of those things that doesn't change for our family!) - Matthew still loves the game and will play ball any chance he gets! Matthew also played travel baseball through the most part of the summer - Jason coached both spring and travel ball. Fall baseball started in August - Matthew's first baseball season that Jason wasn't his coach. It was a great experience for Matthew - time to spread his wings and grow under someone else's guidance.

Summer in our family means birthday season - in June, Matthew turned TEN - yes, TEN!! Hard to believe that beautiful baby and has turned into such a handsome young man! And... in August, our beautiful Megan turned TWELVE - oh my! She is growing into such a beautiful young lady and has such a heart of gold!

In the Fall of 2011 we began to plan a summer vacation for July 2012 - we decided it was time to head out to see some of the beautiful sites our country has to offer and flew out to California! We were able to see San Fransisco, Sequoia National Park and Yosemite National Park - what a beautiful piece of our country. We were amazed by the wonder of the mountains and trees, the we loved riding the trolley cars in San Fransisco. This vacation came at just the right time for our family - we were in the midst of getting all of our paperwork ready to send to China and meeting with our social worker to complete our home study. Combine that with weekly baseball tournaments and crazy work schedules and vacation was just what we needed! We are so thankful that we planned this vacation when we did, we surely would not have spent the money for that trip had we known we would be in the midst of adopting our daughter. But, in His wisdom knew we needed to have one more vacation together before our big trip to China!



Fall brings a new year of school and a big change for Megan this year! She started sixth grade and moved up to Middle School. She is still at Penn View Christian School, but now on the Middle School end of the building. Middle school has brought more challenges and opportunities that Megan is excited about - in January she will take part in her first science fair! Her experiment is on how different flours impact a cupcake recipe. She has been busy baking to finish her project! She will also perform in her first play this Spring - she earned a part in Penn View's production of "Alices Adventures in Wonderland" and will perform on March 1st and 2nd - I can't wait to see her on stage! Matthew is in fourth grade and enjoying another great year of school! He is busy learning all his multiplication and division facts and will soon start memorizing all the state capitals!

Now that baseball season is over, we are in what I affectionatley call our "off season" - no sporting events and relatively easy going weekends! I love this time of year and cherish the quiet afternoons and evenings together at home.

When I look back over the 2012 year, it really has been a year of preparation. God preparing our hearts and minds for the next stage of our life together. In addition to Christmas, next week, Jason & I will celebrate our wedding anniversary of 15 years - 15 amazing years! It has been an amazing journey that we have traveled together and we anxiously await our next journey together. We are praying that we will receive the referral call for our daugther in the first few weeks of 2013! Jason & I will travel to China for about two weeks in late Spring or early Summer to bring Makenna home - how exciting to think about this little girl in China that will soon have a family of her own! We can't wait to see her face and hold her in our arms! Please keep praying for our family - we still have much to do to prepare our hearts and home for her arrival. There will be more fundraising needs, preparing her room, and packing our bags - we know that God will provide all that we need if we wait and trust on Him.

I leave you with a Christmas song - a song I stumbled upon last weekend that puts all our feelings and emotions to music. I believe that this is the cry of every adoptive parents heart while they wait - keep praying for the orphans and waiting families this Christmas week!

We love you all and pray God's richest blessings of love, joy and peace this Christmas Season.

Jason, Jessica, Megan, Matthew & Makenna


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