when i look into her eyes*

i loved her before i even met her. i had one photo of her and 2 days later after the excitement of the call i was staring at her in the only photo we had, looking for little things that can tell me more about who she is, when i realised how sad she looked. i burst out in tears. 

i wanted to pick her up and hold her. i wanted to tell her how much she is loved and wanted. i wanted to tell her how long we have waited for HER and how many prayers we've asked to get to her... how long it took to hold our baby in our arms... i wanted to rock her and sing her to sleep... i wanted to trace her little face with my finger and stare into her eyes and with my eyes, without one word, she would feel how much we loved her. 

the first night she slept in her own cot, with her mama and daddy right next to her, she did not wake. she slept for hours on end. we were waiting in the lounge for her to make a peep so that we 'have to' pick her up... but she didn't wake. with every movement i jumped up and ran to the room, to see that she is still sleeping. disappointed i turned around, because my mom said you don't wake a sleeping baby :-).  at 9 o'clock that evening she turned around and made a tiny sound, on which i ran to the room and i swooped her up in my arms and started talking to her... with the idea to wake her. i just couldn't wait any more.. i wanted to talk to my daughter. 

everything about that conversation was magical. 

it's one year later.  she is in awe of everything around her. her eyes lit up when she sees her daddy and every morning the first person she looks for and call is 'ba-ba' (boeta).. her brother.  when she sees her brother she gets a little jump in her feet as if she is getting ready for take-off. she totally adores him. he asked me the other day why she always follows him (and he is only 5....imagine when he is 10!)... the only answer i had for him is that he is her superhero. we are what her life is about.

on the evening of 22/08/11, she became a daughter, a sister, a daddy's girl, a granddaughter, a cousin, a friend loved my many many people. she made our family rich and happy. we are the luckiest people alive that God chose us to parent this little beautiful girl.

today, i looked into her little eyes and i saw something different...a challenge, a 'i want to see what mama is going to do' look, and i knew it was just the beginning of this little brave girl for whom our social worker had to fight to get her place in our family. i saw determination to get what is hers and i saw adventure... 

today i saw her fierceness and passion to stand up for herself, i saw braveness and softness all at once. i saw a little girl who has changed so much since that first little photo... i see happiness. 

the move* (part 1)

“How do geese know when to fly to the sun?
Who tells them the seasons?
How do we, humans know when it is time to move on?
As with the migrant birds, so surely with us,
there is a voice within if only we would listen to it,
that tells us certainly when to go forth into the unknown.” - Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

 when things are crazy and uncertain, we turn to simplicity and beauty. 

in the midts of the move, kellen picked these little flowers for me to tell me he loves me

It happened. We moved countries. We packed all our belongings, (and our 2 children..heehee), got on an airplane, flied for 13 hours and moved into Mont Kiara, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Unreal. 

We allowed strange men to come into our house, like ants invading our kingdom, with boxes and tape. We allowed them into our personal space and let them pack all our things.  The strange thing about change is how one just adapt... without even trying... you just do it...  i cried most of the first day.

We took many photos to remember everything, every little detail about our house.  We took photos of us in every room, to remember every moment we laughed and cried in our house.  We love our house.
But we are happy.  Like the geese, the seasons have changed, and we are flying out...

We surrender into the known.... love, family, us. We surrender into knowing.  We surrender into God, knowing that He will guide us and show us the way.

Just before the move, i posted a photo saying "happiness is an inside job' and asked: 'i wonder where patience lived?"  Jenica reminded me IT LIVES IN THE NOW. In every moment there is beauty. We just have to open our hearts to it... 

We trust. We trust that life is amazing, that elliot, the moving company, is amazing too.  We trust blindfolded with a knowing that He will take care of us.

There is nothing like 'a mom's cooked meal'.  My aunt and godchild brought us dinner the last evening in our house... with candles... heehee... for atmosphere.... you are amazing! we love you! xx

It can be either scary or life altering seeing how little one really needs / or how much things you pack when you have a baby! :-) Doing this, you realise you don't really need much, except each other.

When you feel overwhelmed with the big move, you go outside to ground yourself.  And you remember... again... of when you moved into the house... this tree on the left... how i love this tree... my mom still brought this tree in her mercedes as a gift... and the tree on the right.. my dad gifted us with that one when we moved into our house 12 years ago.  My family are tree lovers... my dad taught us how to love trees...

So the house emptied and the boxes were moved into the container. This photo on the right is where we went to each room to talk about all the happy memories we had in the room, what we loved of each room and what we are going to miss about it. Kellen was play angry because he loved his room.  It was his safe haven.

But when he got outside, he wanted to get in the container, he was so excited. And the sadness about his bed and books were forgotten, knowing it is all wrapped, packed and ready to be shipped.

i love how kellen finds beauty everywhere... this was a heart shaped shadow

 from the light through the trees. 

Moving countries (house/ changing jobs) is a funny thing. Sometimes the sadness of what was, overwhelms you and you literally just don't know how to move on.  You stay in what was, and forget about all the knew memories and things just around the corner.  For us, our family, we live through what Walt disney says:  'We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”

change is here*

today i've started.
i realised it is true. we are moving. we are moving house, we are moving countries. yep, it's happening.
i've started taking photos down...kind of 'nesting' before the move...putting all the photos together, sorting out what i want to keep, which ones i can throw away.  i'm sorting and organising and oh! visiting places i've been... Memory Lane... oh how i love thee...

“20 years from now you will be disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the one’s you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” -Mark Twain

things i know for sure:

1.  change is scary

2.  it's as if i go into a zone where i'm totally frozen... and then i wake up, like today and realise, this is it. this is your dream. you want to live in different countries, you want to 'experience it all'. go get them. put on your 'brave' and do it.

For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald

3. sometimes things seems uncertain. trust the process. it is going to be ok.

4.  looking at this photo of kellen and bella it reminds me of the uncertainty of trying new things, just seeing the little bits of possibilities, of not seeing the full picture.  we put our feelings and ideas in different catagories, which we should'nt because they all go together. one big bowl of beautiful uncertainty. embrace that.

5. i know God is for me, i know He knows  our way and i know He loves us. i trust in Him.

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

looking back on our stay in the uk for 4 years and the few months in malaysia, i know that the journey we are about to take as a family of four is going to be super exciting. i can already feel that feeling of aliveness, the joy of learning new languages, making new friends, eating different food, different holidays... i know that there are so much beauty awaiting us... i have to breath deeply when i think that i'm going to teach our children through our attitude and behaviour how amazing living in a different country can be...

traveling and or living in a different country is like photography... you never know how the photo is going to turn out... and then bam! surprise! It is amazingly beautiful!

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”
― Alan Watts