THE PARISIEN'S NEW CHRISTMAS TRADITION...

Family is all about traditions and for us being that our little girl is going to be home soon, we wanted to start our own Christmas tradition. We decided to make sugar cookies and to honour Asha we made some of the cookies with a St. Vincent flair. Keep in mind, this is our first attempt at these, so they are not perfect but let us tell you...they sure taste yummy! Here are some cookies we made in the St. Vincent national colors.

Our foster family, The Ottley's, refer to us as being plain skinned and call themselves brown skinned. So we made this bear just for The Ottley's because he...you guessed it, is brown skinned!!!

Daddy wanted to decorate cookies to look like Asha helped to make them. Which cookie do you think Asha would have made?

NOT HOME FOR CHRISTMAS...

We have been ready for Christmas for quite some time already. Our tree is decorated, stockings hung, gifts all wrapped and under the tree and the baking is completed. Although we are ready for Christmas in that sense, we will never be ready for the sadness we feel this holiday season.

To us Christmas means the birth of Jesus Christ but it is also a time for children. And for us, our most special and important gift is not going to be here this Christmas. It will be Asha's very first Christmas and she will be away from home, away from her Daddy and Mommy. More than anything, this time of the year makes us miss her that much more. We are trying to look to the future, to next year when she will be with us and will have her FIRST Christmas home with her family. We try to imagine what she will be like at Christmas next year with the lights and the gifts and the treats and the snow! Especially the snow! What a shock that will be for her!

So during this time, although our hearts ache to hold our little girl in our arms, we hold on to the dream of how wonderful Christmas will be next year. 2009 WILL BE the best year of our lives!!!

ASHER'S BIG FLIGHT...

We wanted to send off a package to our little girl with some things to keep her busy until we could come to bring her home. The first thing we knew we wanted to send to our daughter was a teddy bear for her to cuddle, so we went to the Build-a-Bear Workshop and made her a bear we named Asher. We also put a recording of our voices inside Asher's paw, telling Asha how much we love her. So as Asha grows during her wait for her Daddy and Mommy, she can hear how much we miss and love her every night before she goes to sleep. Asher has a big heart and we know that he will give Asha all the love and hugs that she needs.

We ended up sending the package by UPS and it will hopefully get to St. Vincent by Tuesday this week. It has made us that much more excited to be able to track Asher's journey to find his best friend. Asher wanted to try on Asha's onesie before we sent it. Isn't he adorable and don't you think this onesie will look adorable on Miss Asha?

If you haven't already done so, pause the music on this page (bottom right hand side) and check out the video from Asher himself which is posted below. For a tiny bear, he sure does have a lot to say!

WE TALKED TO OUR DAUGHTER...

On Thursday November 27th we finally got news of the foster parents contact information! They are a lovely couple who have been foster parents for almost ten years. They live out in the country in a small village in the centre of St. Vincent; they both are Godly people and they have a true love for children in need. After speaking with both of them for only a short time, we felt so at ease knowing that God had placed Asha in their care. They both have a wonderful sense of humour and we know she will be loved, nurtured, cuddled and played with. Praise God!!!

We would like to share with all of you what they told us about Asha. We have written down these facts in the dialect they use (how they speak). This is what they told us:

* We have Asha wit us since she was only six days old.
* Asha is growin’ well for her age. She is 12 pounds already; only takin’ four ounces of da milk – she has a small stomach.
* Yo little gurl be a happy bebe. She like to be oudside and is a hand baby; she like ta be in my arms. Only trouble is when I put her down she start ta cry.
* Ah, she bein' noisy now, wants me to pick her up (he laughed then). You don't need ta worry, she be in a good home and she da only bebe here, so she be spoiled!
* (You could hear Asha crying.) Your bebe is cryin’ now cause she need her nappie changed.
* Here, say hello ta ya daddady…(Asha makes cooing sound)…did ya hear her, did ya hear her? She said hallo!
* Da people you know be jealous cause Asha is so cute…everyone will want a piece ah her.

It was truly amazing to talk to them but even more amazing to hear our little girl coo and giggle in the background!!!

Please continue to pray that going through the embassy in Trinidad for Asha’s visa, is a quick and smooth process so that we can bring our precious girl home as fast as possible.

PRAYER REQUEST...

To our family and friends:

We are writing today with heavy hearts and desperately need your prayers.

It looks like we are not going to bring home Asha as soon as we thought. We thought that with a January court date we would be bringing her home in February or March. But with the way the Immigration process works it can take anywhere from 8 - 10 months. It will be a few months longer than we originally thought. The wait is going to be tough so we need help to keep our minds off the wait and focused on the day when we can bring our little girl home.

We have been blessed greatly and never expected to get 'the call' so quickly. Please pray that the second half of our journey to adoption runs just as quickly and smoothly. It is difficult to express in words the love we feel for someone who we have never met, and it is even more difficult to go through each day missing the fact that we can not snuggle and hold our little girl yet. Please continue to pray for peace on our hearts during this time.

Love always,

Scott and Desiree

A HEARTFELT THANK YOU...

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to those who attended our fundraiser/steak night on November 20th, as well as those who donated but were not able to attend. The evening was a huge success and everyone's enormous generosity was a great blessing to our family. Know that by you contributing, you have helped us to bring our precious little girl home!

SAY HELLO TO OUR NEW DAUGHTER ASHA MIKAELA NYAH PARISIEN...

Yesterday, November 7, 2008 was truly the best day of our lives! Look at this perfect face! How can you not love her? The second we saw this little one, we knew that this was the baby that God had chosen for us. We had thought the wait for the call to tell us we had a baby waiting would be anywhere from one to three years - we never thought we'd get the call with a referral only 2 months and 17 days later. We are truly blessed!

We have given her the name of Asha Mikaela Nyah. Asha is African and means 'life', Mikaela is Hebrew which means 'who is like God' and Nyah is African and means 'purpose'. We can't wait for all of you to meet her!

The next step in our journey is to wait for all of the legal court procedures to be completed and processed which they hope to have done in January 2009. After this time, we will be notified that we can finally come and pick up our daughter. We are hoping and praying to be able to go pick her up in St. Vincent as early as February. Thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers!

Scott, Desiree and Asha Parisien

BLESSING FROM A NEW FRIEND...

I recently began corresponding with a new friend who is in the process of adopting from St. Vincent and the Grenadines. She said something to me today that will forever stay in my heart; it was something that I truly needed to hear at this exact moment in our journey. More than she probably even realizes, she blessed me richly and the way I had been looking at our adoption journey has since changed. She said:

'Seeing the 1st smile or hearing mama for the 1st time or seeing the child take their 1st step….I thought I needed to be there for all of that. I also thought I needed to get pregnant so I could feel the unconditional love growing inside me! You know what…I really don’t have the desire anymore for that beginning stage. Those feeling that I felt I needed…the 1st smile, the 1st time I hear mama, the 1st step….we will still get to experience all of that! Everything that my son does for US will be the 1st! I have never held my son or looked into his eyes but the amount of love I have for him amazes me! He may not have been growing inside me…but he most certainly has been growing.'

Desiree

FASHION SENSE OR FASHION NONSENSE?

Any guesses as to why Scott bought this shirt?

HOLLAND???

I recently was watching a DVD about the transition that one must go through from infertility to adoption. Although this poem more specifically was written from a parent having to face that their child was born with a disability, the theme of the poem still holds true for one who has dealt with infertility - each must go through the same path of loss, grief and then finally acceptance. It speaks straight to my heart each time I read it; if anything it gives me a little glimpse of hope and reassures me that although things are not how I originally planned for them to be, in the end Holland can be just as wonderful and special of a place to visit.

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WELCOME TO HOLLAND
By Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this...When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting. After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland." "Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy." But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place. So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met. It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around...and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills...and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts. But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy...and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned." And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away...because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss. But...if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things...about Holland.