Baby Shower - Blessing Way Beads

Okay, so I promised to post a bit about the baby shower. Our friends threw us a couple's shower, so it was a lot of fun - it was nice to share the experience with Kevin.
That's us laughing as we opened the presents. If I'm not mistaken, this is as we were getting ready to open our third high chair! :) We loved everything we received and were so grateful to have all of our friends and family surrounding us. We wished Mimi, Grandma & Grandpa D, and all of his out of town aunts and uncles could have been there, but they will all be here to visit after Micah comes home, so that will be fun. We did have Kevin's sister Becky and her little one Mason in town for the weekend, and it was great having them here! And Chrissy, along with all of my other friends (you know who you are :) made sure that our baby shower was very special - there were Ethiopian colors all around (with red table cloths, a green outdoor tent and bright yellow sunflowers - how cute!).

Before I blabble on about stuff, I want to get to the blessing ceremony and the blessing way beads. This was my sister's contribution to the shower. She lives out on the west coast and is getting married in 1 month, so she couldn't make it, but she asked that they do a blessing ceremony at our shower. On each invitation, everyone was asked to bring a bead to the shower. Then I opened my sister's card which explained the blessing way ceremony as "a West African tradition to show new parents their support." So, basically, everyone had a bead and as a string was passed around, each person added their bead to it with a blessing. Some of the beads had meanings and others were just beautiful... here is what it looked like and I'll explain some of the beads...

The first three are from my sister - the elephant, is to wish Micah a life full of happiness, smiles and laughter, the second, the Ethiopian cross is for protection on our journey, and the third, the rose quartz, signifies unconditional love, and then my sister wrote this (which I read out loud, while crying!):

"Sometimes families must endure unbearable means to find each other. We know you two have had to endure this and yet you never stopped believing in your family. And we, your friends and family, have never stopped believing in you. Your trust and love is truly beautiful. May this trust and love cocoon you two and Micah and be the guiding force in your lifetime together."

Yes, there were certainly a lot of happy tears... a lot. :)

All of the other beads have some meaning, one is for protection, many are African beads, there are some that are black & white beads from our friends who also have a trans-racial family - to signify that we are all together and beautiful in our way. There is also a triangle - each point representing one of us - Kevin, Micah and me. There is also a buckeye - Kevin is from Columbus, Ohio (home of the Buckeyes) and a tiny football from his brother and sister and their families. There is also Micah's name spelled out in those little white beads. I didn't know the significance of this until, at the end of the blessing ceremony, Kevin's sister Becky gave us the beads from his mom - it was the tiny bracelet that the nuns had made for Kevin when he was born...

Well, that set me off into sobs again - it was so tiny and beautiful! I felt so moved that his mom chose to give that to us. We might add it to the blessing beads or we might keep it separate for Micah to have someday when he has his own children. :) Needless to say, we felt very, very blessed after the whole thing. We are lucky to have such wonderful friends and family!

Okay, I'm finished. Oh, and please say prayers for our court date - which is happening very soon!! Hopefully tomorrow I can post pictures of little Micah Yabsira for you all to see!!