Caleb's 1st Football Game With Dad, By Alyssa DiPastena

This is my first blog.

Daddy loves football and Caleb too. I came home from shopping with Mom and the boys were watching a game. Not just any game....the Panthers Football game. The Panthers ended up losing the game 17-12 againts the Ravens. Dad didn't care though, because he loves football and got to share the day with his little man.

Caleb doesnt know it yet, but he will soon be watching lots of football games with Dad.

I hope that Caleb will love the Panthers instead of the Atlanta Falcons. After all Panthers are much cooler than a silly black bird.

Well, that's all for now. I do have to say that the two best boys in my life are really cool and I love them very much!

Blog by: Alyssa Rose DiPastena

Baby Caleb

March 7, 2010 will mark the 10 year birthday of our beautiful adopted daughter, Alyssa Rose. I will never forget the excitement combined with nervousness as I saw the ultra sound for the first time. There was this little life growing inside a young girl and yet amazingly and almost supernaturally I felt love for this child instantly growing in my heart. I guess for those of you have been pregnant it’s similar to receiving that long awaited positive pregnancy test.

It’s been almost ten years since we brought home the most magnificent gift we could ever receive. Throughout the years Andrew and I have walked the path of adoption with many, many young ladies. With every potential adoption we have earnestly prayed that the doors would only open for us if it was the right time to grow our family.

Well. . . .We are extremely excited and overjoyed to announce that we now have new photos to show off.

This is Baby Caleb.

Isn't he a handsome man?

Yes, it does indeed appear that Alyssa will have a little brother.

Keep us all in your prayers as we continue this process. I often liken adoption to a high-risk pregnancy. At any moment you could loose the child. We are moving forward in faith that the Lord has opened this door for our family exactly 10 years to the day. Both Alyssa and Caleb share the same due date. March 8th. I think its more than coincidence that Caleb will come at the 10 year anniversary of parenthood for the DiPastena's. Why is that you ask? The Biblical Meaning of Number 10 is completeness in divine order or completed course of time. There's nothing that is left wanting within. It's just like Jesus to fill those voids and leave us complete, wanting nothing within.

Do we serve a great God or what?

Wow God is Great!!

I've been meaning to blog this for over a month now and time just seems to be slipping by. I considered skipping this event, but the more I thought about it, the more I was overwhelmed by the GREATNESS of God. So sit back and relax as I tell you a true story of my personal journey of God's faithfulness.

One month ago from today we were in the middle of hosting a huge youth event at church called Illuminate. Andrew was on his way to pick our guest speaker for the evening and ended up in a fender bender. Ok so it was more than a bump...it actually totaled our car.

He took his eyes off the road for a moment and rear-ended the car in front of him, that in turn hit the truck in front of it. Thankfully everyone was fine.

So here's where my part of the story comes in. Our event was very successful but like most 4-day youth events...exhausting. By Saturday evening I was feeling very fluish and tired. Because of our busy weekend schedule I still hadn't even seen the wrecked car. I slept most of the day on Sunday afternoon and woke up at 6:00am Monday morning. This was a little early for me, but my uncontrollable coughing was making it impossible for me to get back to sleep. I decide to get up and spend a few minutes with the Lord. I read the passage from John 9 about when Jesus spit in the dirt and healed the blind man. The first 3 verses say this 1. As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.2. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"3. "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.

I continued to read the rest of the passage, closed my Bible and didn't give it another thought. To be completely honest I really just did a "ring and run" with God. I didn't "feel" like hearing anything from Him. After all I was sick and tired because I was "doing work for Him". Well I got Alyssa up and took her to school. Knowing the insurance appraiser would be by the repair shop shortly, I dropped Alyssa off and decided to stop by to take a gander at the car. I wanted to examine all the damage for myself. After looking at the car and taking the photos above, I started slipping into that yucky place. I began the "whoa is me" cycle of questioning God. My conversation went sort of like this.

"God, this is just great. You know we are a 2-car family and our 11 year old, 150,000 mile Camry was our good car. Why couldn't it have been our other car, the Grammy car? And how about our infertility issues? Why is it that everyone who isn't ready for children are always getting pregnant? Here we are chasing down our 4th adoption this year. Oh yeah, and what's up Andrews health? Why don't you just heal him? What did we do to deserve this?" Needless to say I wasn't in the best of place on a personal level. Ever been there? Well before I utter my next complaint, I looked in my rear-view mirror. Now those of you who know me well, know that I'm not one to say the "Lord spoke to me" unless I really knew it was Him. As I looked in that mirror, the Lord spoke to me like never before. He shouted this word in my spirit...MARBI, STOP LOOKING IN THE REAR-VIEW MIRROR!

Before I could even question what He meant, I was reminded of the passage of scripture that I had just read less than an hour ago. Remember? His disciples point to a man born blind and ask, "Who sinned, this man or his parents?" In other words, they wanted to know why did he deserve blindness? Jesus answers frankly, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life." The disciples looked backwards to find out why the man was blind. Jesus redirects their attention by pointing forward and upward with a new and different perspective. I realized that I was doing just as the disciples did, I was looking in the rear-view mirror of my own life for the failures when all along he wanted to reveal His Glory in my life. I made the decision right there in the Grammy car to trust Jesus with it all. After all He loves me and wants the best for my life. I wasn't sure how he would work but I knew that He was in control and I promised Him that I would give Him praise regardless of my circumstances. My focus had been inward on myself, thus making fear, insecurity, grumbling and despair my natural response. I came home that morning with a different perspective. One of excitement when I thought about how the Lord was going to work in our situation. Later that day a man in our church named Kevin called to tell us he had a car we could borrow until we found other means of transportation. Praise the Lord!

We also got the appraisal from the accident. $3850. What?! For our 11yr old 150,000 mile car. Unbelievable. So we had a nice deposit to put down on another vehicle. Praise the Lord AGAIN!! After a few days Andrew decided to ask Kevin who was letting us use his car if he would be interested in selling it? He said yes, that he was asking $4000 for the vehicle. WOW that’s almost exactly what our insurance check was for. By now I'm really starting to see how the Lord was doing His "Glory Work". A day or so passed and Andrew called to let Kevin, the owner of the fully loaded, leather interior, with 50,000 less miles than the Camry, know that we would like to purchase the car. Kevin came back informing us that the $4000 price was not going to work anymore. A bit confused, Andrew asked what he meant. Kevin proceeded to tell him that $4000 was just too much and how did FREE sound? Yes I said FREE. No strings attached. So the Lord gave us a NICE free car and over $3800. All I can say is God Is Great! I am completely overwhelmed by the faithfulness of our Savior.

WOW GOD IS GREAT! NO MORE REAR-VIEW MIRRORS!

God Surprises

Let me start by saying I am always completely overwhelmed by Gods provision. Our family relocated [again] to Atlanta, GA in February ’09. I say again, only because Andrew and I are frequent movers. Since marring in ’92, we have lived in 14 different homes and in 5 states. [I love it here in Atlanta so I believe that this is the final stop.] One of the things that I always find interesting about moving into a previously owned home are the little “surprises” you encounter after moving in. Some of those “surprises” are major headaches but every now and then you feel like you struck gold.

We have been in our new home for a little over 6 months now. Just when we thought we had uncovered all the “little surprises” to our amazement we discovered something wonderful! We have an irrigation system! There has been a drought ordinance in effect here in Atlanta almost the entire summer. In attempt to keep the yard from turning completely brown, Andrew has been watering the front yard by hosing it down. Don’t misunderstand me here. We haven’t been using a yard sprinkler; we have literally been watering the yard one square foot at a time with the garden hose. You can only image our excitement when our neighbor finally clued us in on the fact that we have an underground irrigation system. Of course the grass had grown over all the sprinkler covers so turning it on for the first time was awesome. It was like little chicks busting out of their shells all over the front yard. Alyssa thought it is was the best thing ever! Before we knew it she ran inside, put on her swim suit and was back out to play. What a cool God surprise we had in our front yard.

Without a doubt, God's surprises are one of the best parts of being a Christian. They don’t happen everyday, but when they do, you know it. I’m so glad that I serve a God who not only cares about the big things in life, but mostly He delights in seeing us our hearts full of joy as we relish in His little surprises.

Is this JOY or what??

Here goes nothing!

Hello everyone. Most of you know that I’m the best at keeping in touch. Well I’ve decided to turn over a new leaf, spread my wings, broaden my horizons, to take a leap and what better way than to start a blog? In all seriousness, my sister REALLY wanted me to do this and she just won’t leave me alone. So… I’m doing this for you Mandy…I’m doing this for you! I do think blogging will actually be a good thing once I get in the routine of posting. I never seem to have the time to scrapbook anymore so I guess I can just print out the pages and wa-la I’m a scrapbook queen. It’s got to be better than nothing.J.

For my first post I want to talk about how proud I am of my not-so-little girl. Those of you who know Alyssa, she is quite the artistic child. She loves anything crafty. I must admit she is really good. Well, Alyssa not only excels in the pen and brush side of art, she also loves the “arts”. It doesn’t matter if its music, dance, singing, drama or ballet if it’s the “Arts” …she’s in.

Now, for many moms this would be great, however, I personally know some ultra competitive, athletic moms who shutter at the thought of their daughter being a sideline cheerleader as opposed to being “in the action.” [OK so I’m talking about myself.] I mean after all would you rather see your 9 year old daughter in a tight short skirt or in a jersey leading the team to victory? So with that being said, I decided this would be the year to introduce Alyssa to REAL competitive sports. [My apologies go out to all you cheerleaders out there but the “sport of cheerleading” still sounds like an oxymoron to me.] Anyways, I knew I would have to sell Alyssa on the idea of sports. My tactic had to be precise and flawless. After several days of internal deliberation, I chose to pose the question of, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” She responded by saying, “ a nurse.” Her answer was the perfect lead into my “sports talk.” After all a nurses mission is improved health and what better way to stay healthy than playing sports? Namely SOCCER! To be completely honest, initially, Alyssa wasn’t too excited about this. She told me she still has nightmares about a time when a boy kicked a soccer ball into her face. For days I tried to convince her that ALL cool girls play soccer. To my dismay nothing seemed to work. Alyssa was very persistent in trying to reason with me as to why playing soccer was a bad idea. She told me that she didn’t like to sweat; that she didn’t want to get hurt and that she just wasn’t really into sports. I could feel my heart crumble. Was I, Marbi Mauch DiPastena, actually going to have a daughter who was a life long girly-girl? Just as I was about to accept my defeat, her friend Ava joined a local soccer team. So I did what every good mom does, I signed her up without her knowing. I figured if she went kicking and screaming, she just might kick the ball and score a goal.

When I shared the news of her and Ava being on the same team, Alyssa’s interest level changed a bit. I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Soccer breakthrough was on it’s was. The final sale happened when I told her we needed to go “shopping” for new athletic clothes. She had her first game last weekend and she did great! Andrew and I were commenting on how we have never seen her run so much in her entire life. She even got hit in the face with the ball and kept on playing. As soon as the game started the coach put her in the goalie box. Poor child she didn’t even know she could use her hands. I felt like the psycho mom on the sidelines yelling out all the “what-to-do’s”. Andrew looked at me one time and said, “WOW, you’re getting pretty intense”. Of course he was right. So now my challenge is letting the coach, coach. I love watching my girly-girl try new things, and excel at those challenges. We have already begun to see her confidence rise as she looks to the sidelines for approval. After her first game she ran to Andrew and me and gave us a BIG hug. She asked, “Did I do good?” That question resonated with me. I began to think, how often do WE ask others that question? Frequently we base our actions on the approval of other people will think of us. There have been so many opportunities that I have let pass by because of fear of rejection or disapproval. The Lord quickly reminded me that true freedom never comes until we fully realize that we don't need to struggle to get from man, what God freely gives us: love, acceptance, approval, security, worth and value. I guess it would behoove us all to remember not to be afraid to go out on a “God” limb, because that's where the best fruit is.

Look at the control!

Shes a natural!

Be AGGRESSIVE!! Be, be Agressive!

She Kicks....She scores! Not really.