So today was Gabriella's first Christmas and it was really fun! We got to see the family again and got lots of really cool presents, Gabriella got this really cool pair of shoes from uncle Richard and aunty Claire. Check them out in the pics. 
So not only have we got little Gabriella we also have another little one brewing! God has indeed been good to us and has decided to bless us with a biological child as well, our second born will be arriving early June if everything goes according to plan : )
We had a scan recently (hence the pic) and we are 90% sure it's a boy so this is going to be fun. I have prepared myself to be a daddy of girls and really didn't even give a boy any thought, that will have to change now.
Anyway we are really looking forward to the year ahead and ALL the challenges it will bring but we are truly thankful and am certain that this is what God has had planned for us right now, and confident that He will provide the grace and strength needed :-)
Recently I was at work and one of my staff members asked if I would mind him going home a bit earlier than normal. Not a problem I said, the next day when he came in I asked if everything was alright and he said "everything was fine he just wanted to miss the traffic to make it home for his sons bath time"
Well I thought that was a bit odd, until little Ella arrived I didn't get it... but now that's another story! I really enjoy the bath times with little one, and I think she enjoys them too.
Here is a pic of what I get the privilege of experiencing at the end of bath time : )
Tonight was super fun, we went out for dinner with T-man and Ali... long overdue but well worth the wait.
Gabriella had fun too catching up with her pal in the way that babies do (not really sure how this works but it seems they get each other)
Awesome evening chatting about real things that matter... Life, kids, love and the Gospel!
Thanks to our pals for a fantastic evening
So today we had all the cousins together at a birthday thing for Ashley and we managed to get all of them together for a really cool family photo.
Lots of happy fun times : )
So this week has been rather fun as we started Gabriella on solids, she started out with yuk rice cereal but today we moved onto butternut... yum yum and worth every photo. It was so cute but I don't think that little one enjoyed it so much.
There was a second highlight today...
Gabriella got to meet Grampa Mike and aunty Lynne that were up visiting all the way from Cape Town so I had to wear my cute new Christmas hat!
Its been a while since an update has gone out about our little girl, Yip she is home : ) and she has been for a while.
At one stage we were really worried about when it was going to happen but we are glad it has. Things have been good and it has been an amazing few weeks. Today Gabriella seems to have found her voice and won't stop talking...
An update to what I think this will be know as "Gabbys journal" will be posted again soon.
A rather hectic week in the Payne household this week... we get a baby that is absolutely beautiful and we can't wait to bring her home. We have to wait for some things go through but right now we have to go and visit, and we had so much time today with our little girl that it actually hurt to leave.
I am really thankful that God has allowed us travel this road, to some this would seem like a really really hard thing to do but for us it really hasn't been hard, and for that I am thankful. Deb is having fun, she keeps taking video clips of me saying utterly stupid things to get Gabriella to smile ; )
So today we finally get to meet the little girl that we have been planning for what we thought was going to be months... it has taken just under 7 weeks for the whole adoption process to go through and this morning we get to meet Gabriella Grace Payne!
This is a new chapter in our lives and I hopefully will spend lots of time recording things here for her to see when she is all big and grown up : )
Photos to come soon...
So last Friday night we had a discussion about getting off your butt and not being lazy... What does this look like? Well I am not 100% sure myself but I do think that we can learn a lot from people that have gone before us, one person that I have taken the time to read more about (Thanks to the insight of Neil on the topic)is Dietrich Bonhoeffer the read on the link is long but so worth it. I have copied some of the article on the works of Bonhoffer just to give a taste of how this guy didn't spend his days on his butt... Bonhoffer died at the age of 39 years old.
> Sanctorum Communio.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 1 . Dietrich
Bonhoeffer; Clifford Green, Editor Translated by Reinhard Krauss and Nancy
Lukens. Hardcover, 392 pages; 978- 0- 8006- 8301- 6 and Paperback, 386 pages;
978- 0- 8006- 9652- 8. Bonhoeffer's dissertation, completed in 1927 and first
published in 1930 as Sanctorum Communio: eine Dogmatische Untersuchung
zur Soziologie der Kirche . In it he attempts to work out a theology of the person
in society, and particularly in the church. Along with explaining his early positions
on sin, evil, solidarity, collective spirit, and collective guilt , it unfolds a systematic
theology of the Spirit at work in the church and what it implies for questions on
authority, freedom, ritual, and eschatology.
> Act and Being.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 2 . Dietrich Bonhoeffer;
Wayne Whitson Floyd and Hans Richard Reuter, Editors; Translated by H. Martin
Rumscheidt. Hardcover, 256 pages: 978- 0- 8006- 8302- 3 . Bonhoeffer’s second
dissertation, written in 1929– 30 and published in 1931 as Akt und Sein , deals
with the consciousness and conscience in theology from the perspective of the
Reformation 's insight into the origin sinfulness in the “heart turned in upon itself
and thus open neither to the revelation of God nor to the encounter with the
neighbor.” Bonhoeffer’s thoughts about power, revelation, Otherness, theological
method, and theological anthropology are explained.
> Creation and Fall.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 3 . Dietrich
Bonhoeffer; John W. De Gruchy, Editor Translated by Douglas Stephen Bax. In
1932 Bonhoeffer called on his students at the University of Berlin to focus their
attention on the word of God, the word of truth, in a time of turmoil. Hardcover,
214 pages: 978- 0- 8006- 8303-0 . Paper, 224 pages: 978- 0- 8006- 8323- 8 .
> Discipleship.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 4 . Dietrich Bonhoeffer;
John D. Dodsey and Geoffrey B. Kelly, Editors. Originally published in 1937, this
book soon became a classic exposition of what it means to follow Christ in a
modern world beset by a dangerous and criminal government. Hardcover, 384
pages: 978- 0- 8006- 8304- 7. Paper, 354 pages: 978- 0- 8006- 8324-5 .
> Life Together and Prayerbook of the Bible. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works,
Volume 5. Dietrich Bonhoeffer; James H. Burtness and Geffrey B. Kelly, Editors;
Translated by Daniel W. Bloesch. Hardcover, 242 pages: 978- 0- 8006- 8305- 4.
Paper, 232 pages: 978- 0- 8006- 8325- 2.
> Life Together is a classic which contains
Bonhoeffer's meditation on the nature of Christian community. Prayerbook of
the Bible is a classic meditation on the importance of the Psalms for Christian
prayer . In this theological interpretation of the Psalms, Bonhoeffer describes the
moods of an individual’s relationship with God and also the turns of love and
heartbreak, of joy and sorrow, that are themselves the Christian community’s
path to God.
>Ethics.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 6. Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Clifford
Green, Editor; Translated by Reinhard Krauss, Douglas W. Stott, and Charles C.
West. The crown jewel of Bonhoeffer’s body of work, Ethics is the culmination of
his theological and personal odyssey. Hardcover, 544 pages :
978- 0- 8006- 8306- 1. Paperback, 605 pages : 978- 0- 8006- 8326-9 .
> Fiction from Tegel Prison.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 7 . Dietrich
Bonhoeffer; Clifford Green, Editor Translated by Nancy Lukens. The writings in
this book disclose much of Bonhoeffer’s family context, social work, and cultural
milieu. Hardcover, 288 pages: 978- 0- 8006- 8307- 8. Writing fiction— an
incomplete drama, a novel fragment, and a short story— occupied much of
Bonhoeffer’s first year in Tegel prison, as well as writing to his family and his
fiancée and dealing with his interrogation. “There is a good deal of
autobiography mixed in with it,” he explained to his friend and biographer
Eberhard Bethge. Richly annotated by German editors Renate Bethge and Ilse
Todt and by Clifford Green, the writings in this book disclose a great deal of
Bonhoeffer’s family context, social world, and cultural milieu. Events from his life
are recounted in a way that illuminates his theology. Characters and situations
that represent Nazi types and attitudes became a form of social criticism and
help to explain Bonhoeffer’s participation in the resistance movement and the
plot to kill Hitler.
> Letters and Papers from Prison.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 8.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer; John W. de Gruchy, Editor; Translated by Isabel Best; Lisa E.
Dahill; Reinhard Krauss; Nancy Lukens. This splendid volume, in many ways the
capstone of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, is the first unabridged collection of
Bonhoeffer's 1943–1945 prison letters and theological writings. Here are over
200 documents that include extensive correspondence with his family and
Eberhard Bethge (much of it in English for the first time), as well as his
theological notes, and his prison poems. The volume offers an illuminating
introduction by editor John de Gruchy and an historical Afterword by the editors
of the original German volume: Christian Gremmels, Eberhard Bethge, and
Renate Bethge. Hardcover, 800 pages: 978- 0- 8006- 9703- 7.
> The Young Bonhoeffer, 1918–1927.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 9 .
Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Paul Duane Metheny, Editor. Gathers Bonhoeffer’s 100
earliest letters and journals from after the First World War through his graduation
from Berlin University. Hardcover, 720 pages: 978- 0- 8006- 8309- 2. This work
gathers his earliest letters and journals through his graduation from Berlin
University . It also contains his early theological writings up to his dissertation.
The seventeen essays include works on the patristic period for Adolf von Harnack ,
on Luther's moods for Karl Holl, on biblical interpretation for Professor Reinhold
Seeberg, as well as essays on the church and eschatology, reason and revelation,
Job, John, and even joy. Rounding out this picture of Bonhoeffer's nascent
theology are his sermons from the period, along with his lectures on homiletics,
catechesis, and practical theology.
Barcelona, Berlin, New York: 1928–1931 .
> Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works,
Volume 10. Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Clifford Green, Editor. This period from 1928 to
1931, which followed completion of his dissertation, was formative for
Bonhoeffer’s personal, pastoral, and theological direction. Hardcover, 790 pages:
978- 0- 8006- 8330- 6.
> Ecumenical, Academic and Pastoral Work: 1931–1932 , Dietrich
Bonhoeffer’s Works, Volume 11 , is a translation of Ökumene, Universität,
Pfarramt: 1931–1932 and with a pending 2012 release. Hardcover, 576 pages:
978- 0- 8006- 9838- 6. [37] .
Berlin: 1932–1933.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 12 . Dietrich
Bonhoeffer; Larry L. Rasmussen, Editor. Translated by Isabel Best, David Higgins,
and Douglas W. Stott. Berlin documents the crisis of 1933 in Germany as
Bonhoeffer taught “on a faculty whose theology he did not share.” Hardcover,
650 pages: 978- 0- 8006- 8312-2 .
London, 1933–1935 .
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Works, Volume 13 . Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Keith C. Clements, Editor Translated by Isabel Best. Includes records
and minutes of his congregational meetings, reports from international
conferences from 1934, more than 20 sermons he preached in London, and
more. Hardcover, 550 pages: 978- 0- 8006- 8313- 9.
> Theological Education at Finkenwalde: 1935–1937 , Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s
Works, Volume 14, is a translation of Illegale Theologenausbildung: 1935–
1937, and is "Not Yet Published".
Theological Education Underground: 1937–1940, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s
Works, Volume 15 , is a translation of Illegale Theologenausbildung: 1937–
1940. Hardcover, 750 pages: 978- 0- 8006- 9815-7 [38] .
> Conspiracy and Imprisonment 1940–1945. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works,
Volume 16 . Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Mark Brocker, Editor Translated by Lisa E.
Dahill. Hundreds of letters, including 10 never before published letters to his
fiancée, Maria von Wedemeyer, as well as official documents, short original
pieces, and his final sermons. Hardcover, 912 pages: 978- 0- 8006- 8316-0 .
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